The northern and north-eastern arc of its enclosing bank has been replaced entirely by a modern linear field boundary, and the rest has been modified and folded into the same system of divisions, to the point where the original entrance can no longer be identified. What survives is a raised circular area roughly 29.6 metres in internal diameter, with a substantial earthen bank still legible around much of its circuit and faint traces of a fosse, the external ditch that would originally have accompanied it.

This is a rath, the most common type of early medieval enclosure in Ireland, typically interpreted as a farmstead of some status, dating broadly to the period between the sixth and twelfth centuries. Raths were built from earth and timber rather than stone, which is why so many have survived only as subtle rises in a field rather than as dramatic ruins. The fosse was dug to provide the material for the bank, and together they formed a boundary that was as much about marking ownership and social standing as about defence. At Clareboy, centuries of agricultural use have done what time alone might not have managed quite so thoroughly: the farm that was once enclosed by this earthwork has, in a certain irony, been overwritten by the very kind of land management its builders were engaged in.