That is a considerable height for a ringfort, the term used for the enclosed farmsteads that were the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries. Most survive as low, worn rings; this one at Clashatarriff retains a presence that suggests the bank has not suffered too badly from the centuries of ploughing and livestock that have flattened so many of its counterparts across the country.

The raised area measures thirty metres in diameter, enclosed by that earthen bank with a stretch of outer stone facing running from the north-west around to the south. A low section to the south-south-east may mark a blocked original entrance, a common feature in ringforts, where the entrance was often later sealed, whether for defence, agricultural convenience, or simple disuse. A gap two metres wide to the north offers another possible point of access, original or later. Around the north-west to north arc of the enclosure, traces of an external fosse, the shallow defensive ditch typically dug to provide material for the bank and to add an extra obstacle, remain visible in the ground. The combination of earthen construction, stone-faced outer bank, and probable fosse places this firmly within the tradition of more substantial raths, as the earthen variety of ringfort is often called, suggesting whoever built and occupied it had the resources and community labour to invest in a well-defended homestead overlooking the river valley below.