That kind of collision between medieval land division and prehistoric earthwork is not especially rare in Ireland, but it gives this particular site in Carrigeen a quietly fractured quality, the visible remains amounting to little more than an arc.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular earthen enclosure, typically dating from the early medieval period and interpreted as a defended farmstead. This example sits in a ploughed field on the break of a south-west-facing slope, where the ground would have offered both drainage and a degree of natural visibility. What survives is a circular, slightly raised area measuring approximately 29 metres north to south, defined by a low internal bank no more than 0.3 metres high running from the north-west round to the south. An external fosse, a shallow ditch dug around the outside of the bank to reinforce the enclosure, is traceable to the north and south-south-east. The interior is noticeably higher at its centre than at the perimeter, a subtle doming effect that can be a consequence of long centuries of ploughing gradually pushing soil outward from the middle of a raised area. To the west of the townland boundary, no earthwork is visible at ground level at all, the bank either levelled by repeated cultivation or simply absorbed into the field surface over time.