Ringforts, or raths, were typically enclosed farmsteads of the early medieval period, their circular banks and ditches defining a protected space for a household and its livestock. What makes this one in Carrowculleen quietly interesting is not just its local name but the fact that it sits within a small cluster of related monuments, with another ringfort roughly 130 metres to the south-west and a separate enclosure about the same distance to the north.

The rath itself is subcircular in plan, measuring around 34.5 metres north to south and 32 metres east to west. It is defined by two earthen banks with a fosse, the term for the ditch cut between or outside them, running between them. The inner bank no longer survives all the way around; it remains visible at the north-east, but elsewhere the enclosing element has reduced to a scarp, a steep natural-looking slope where the bank has spread or eroded over the centuries. An entrance is discernible on the eastern side, which is a common orientation for ringfort entrances. The name Water Fort, noted by Neary in 1914, may suggest a proximity to water or a waterlogged interior, though exactly what prompted the name locally is not recorded.