What makes this rath, as a ringfort of this type is known, slightly unusual is the absence of any visible ditch or entrance, features that typically define the form. Most raths were enclosed by a combination of bank and external ditch, the upcast soil from the ditch used to build the bank itself, so a site where no ditch can be detected prompts questions about construction method, later disturbance, or simply the degree to which the ground has been worked over time.

The earthwork comprises a circular raised interior roughly thirty metres across, enclosed by a bank around five and a half metres wide and only about forty centimetres high at present, all of it set on a low platform rising half a metre above the surrounding ground. Raths were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, broadly dating from the fifth to the twelfth centuries, and were typically the enclosed farmsteads of single families or small communities. The elevated position here, looking out over Ballysadare Bay, is consistent with that tradition of siting a homestead where the land offered both prospect and a degree of natural advantage. The bank, though considerably degraded, preserves the essential circular plan that gives these sites their enduring legibility in the landscape even after a thousand or more years.