A rath is an early medieval enclosed farmstead, typically circular, defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, and used both as a domestic enclosure and a marker of social standing. What sets this example apart is the problem its builders had to solve: the land slopes, and a circular enclosure on a hillside would normally produce an uneven interior floor, lower on the downhill side.

The solution they settled on is visible in the ground today. The interior has been deliberately raised on the southern side, and a scarp, a cut or stepped face in the earth, runs in an arc from the south-east to the south-west, sitting roughly fifteen metres inside the southern bank. This internal terrace effectively levels out what the hillside tilts away. The main bank stands around two metres high and measures 58.5 metres in diameter, with an external fosse, a defensive or drainage ditch, cut along the northern side. There was once an additional outer bank at the north-east quadrant, recorded at three to four feet high by Hartnett in 1939, but that feature has since been lost entirely from the landscape.

The site looks out southward over the River Lee, a view that may well have influenced its original placement, whether for practical oversight of movement along the valley or simply because an elevated, south-facing position was considered desirable. The gradual disappearance of the outer bank between Hartnett's visit and later surveys is a quiet reminder of how much of this kind of earthwork has been eroded, ploughed, or simply absorbed into the working farmland around it.