A rath, as these earthwork enclosures are commonly called, was typically built as a defended farmstead, the raised bank and its outer ditch enclosing a family's dwelling and outbuildings. At Carrowliam More, the platform measures roughly thirty metres across and is defined by a substantial scarp that drops as much as 2.6 metres on its south-eastern side, a height that suggests the original bank was once a serious boundary, not merely a symbolic one.

The rath sits at the eastern end of an elevated east-west ridge, a position that would have offered both drainage and visibility. To the north, east, and south, tracts of bog intermixed with reclaimed grassland stretch out around it, and to the east the low-lying bog continues for around 600 metres until it reaches the River Moy. That combination of elevated ground and surrounding wetland was a deliberate choice; early medieval farmers in Ireland regularly selected such positions, using the bog itself as a natural buffer. The earthwork has not been untouched by later hands. Along the south-east and south, the outer face of the scarp has been cut to the vertical and reinforced with drystone walling, modifications linked in date to a derelict farmstead that still stands immediately to the south-east. A field fence has also merged into the north-western arc of the scarp, and a heap of field clearance debris sits piled against the south-western side. A ramp-like slope at the south of the enclosure may preserve the line of an original entrance, though it too has likely been altered during the farmstead's period of use. The interior of the platform remains level, and the remnant of an earthen rim along the south-west to north-west arc hints at the full width the original bank once carried, somewhere between three and three and a half metres across.