This is a rath, the Irish term for a roughly circular enclosure built during the early medieval period, typically between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and used as a defended farmstead. Thousands of them survive across Ireland in various states of preservation, but this one in County Mayo has an interior that rewards a closer look.

The enclosure is nearly circular, measuring about 16.6 metres north to south and 19.4 metres east to west, defined by an earthen bank that still stands up to 1.6 metres high on its outer face to the west. Parts of that bank, both on its inner and outer slopes, are faced with stones, though surveyors have noted this stonework may be a later addition rather than original construction. The southern stretch of the bank has eroded down to little more than a scarp, and a narrow gap at the south-east, roughly 1.6 metres wide, appears to have been worn away by cattle rather than by any deliberate design. The original entrance is thought to have been somewhere on the eastern half, where the interior ground sits lowest relative to the land outside. Immediately beyond the bank to the south-west, a slight boulder-studded rise follows a line of hazel; it may once have been an outer defensive bank or wall, though it could equally be a later field boundary. Whatever its origin, the gap between it and the main enclosure now serves as a cattle track. Inside the rath, roughly at its centre, a circular raised platform about eight metres across holds the remains of what may be a hut site, and a loose, poorly preserved stone wall runs from the southern bank northward through the interior, curving around that central platform as it goes.

The whole site sits on the south-facing side of a rise, which would have made it a sensible choice for early farmers seeking shelter, light, and a decent view of the surrounding land. Today, much of the interior is engulfed in hazel scrub, which makes the internal details difficult to read on the ground. The stonework on the bank faces is clearest at the east, though much of it has tumbled. Visitors prepared to push through the scrub will find a site that layers several possible phases of use, none of them yet fully resolved.