The earthwork at Cloghmacow is a rath, a type of ringfort typically associated with the farmsteads of early Irish society, and its relationship with the hillside it occupies is more considered than casual glances suggest. The roughly circular enclosure measures about 39 metres in diameter, defined by two earthen banks separated by a fosse, a defensive ditch, cut to a depth of around 1.4 metres. What gives this particular example its quiet interest is the way the builders worked with the slope rather than against it.

On the northern side, where the ground rises, the banks have been cut directly into the hillside, and the outer bank, some six metres across its top, climbs with the terrain until the slope flattens out and the earthwork simply dissolves into level ground. On the southern side, however, the builders took a different approach. Here the interior of the enclosure sits raised, and both the inner and outer banks survive as low rises perched on what are comparatively steep drops. The inner bank stands about 0.3 metres above the interior but drops nearly 2.7 metres on its exterior face; the outer bank falls about 2 metres on its far side. Between the two banks on this side there is a terrace, a narrow flat platform, which would have made the whole southern perimeter feel considerably more formidable to anyone approaching from below. The entrance faces east, and the interior itself slopes gently downward toward the south. In the north-western quadrant there is a possible souterrain, an underground passage or chamber of the kind commonly found in ringforts, which may have served for storage or concealment. Together, these features suggest a site that was designed with some attention to how it read from different angles and approaches.