The old enclosure announces itself through grass alone: a belt of notably lush growth, roughly five to seven metres wide, traces a near-perfect circle across what is now a reclaimed field. This vivid ring of green marks the line of the original fosse, the defensive ditch that once surrounded the settlement. Buried organic material and the retained moisture of a filled-in ditch tend to produce exactly this kind of differential growth, and here it is legible enough to measure: approximately fifty-two metres across on the north-south axis, fifty-five metres on the east-west.

Ringforts, also called raths, were the most common type of enclosed farmstead in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from the sixth to the tenth century. They usually consisted of an earthen bank and external ditch enclosing a family's dwelling and outbuildings. What makes the Coolkip example quietly distinctive is the natural well that survives within the interior, sitting near the western edge of the enclosed area. It is a steep-sided pit, roughly five metres in diameter, with water still present at the base, and a more recent pump-house has been added to its east side. The combination of an enclosure site and an internal water source would have made this a particularly practical and self-contained settlement location, and the fact that the well has remained in use long enough to acquire a pump-house suggests the water source has never entirely lost its utility.