A rath is an early medieval enclosure, typically of earthen banks and ditches, that once served as a farmstead or high-status dwelling. This one commands the surrounding landscape entirely, with the ground falling sharply to the west down to flat terrain and, beyond that, a wide view towards Lough Conn. The eastern slope is more gradual, which may partly explain why the most elaborate defensive features are concentrated on the western and south-western arc.

What makes this particular rath worth attention is the complexity of its construction. The core is a raised oval area roughly 33 metres north to south and 25 metres east to west, defined by a substantial earthen inner bank. That bank drops externally by up to 2.2 metres on the western side, with stones still protruding from its top and inner face. Beyond it lies a fosse, the term for the ditch that typically accompanies such a bank, and then a second external bank. On the south-western to north-western arc there is also a third bank, narrower and lower, which follows the curve of the rath and is now used as a field fence. The gap between this outer bank and the second bank may represent a second fosse, giving the western approach a layered sequence of three banks and two ditches, though this elaboration does not appear to continue around the eastern half of the enclosure. The original entrance seems to have been a gap of about 1.8 metres in the inner bank at the south-east, where the fosse becomes shallower and the outer bank correspondingly lower, as though the approach was deliberately softened at that point. Remnants of old field fences radiate outward from the second bank in several directions, suggesting the rath sat at the centre of a managed agricultural landscape. Another rath lies approximately 200 metres to the south-east, which raises the possibility that the two formed part of a connected or related settlement pattern rather than isolated individual sites.

The banks today are densely lined with hazel and hawthorn, and the interior is partly obscured by overgrowth, so the full geometry of the enclosure is easier to read from the outside than from within. The asymmetry of the defences, elaborate to the west where the ground falls most steeply, lighter to the east where the approach is gentler, gives a real sense of how deliberately this site was designed around the specific contours of its ridge.