The earthwork sits on a north-facing slope in pasture, roughly 150 metres south of the Coom river, and it is the sort of place that rewards a second look. What appears at first to be a simple raised enclosure turns out to carry within it the geometry and logic of an early medieval farmstead.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when constructed from earth rather than stone, were the standard form of enclosed settlement across Ireland roughly from the early centuries of the first millennium into the medieval period. They typically served as protected farmsteads for a single family and their livestock, the enclosing bank and ditch providing both a physical barrier and a statement of social standing. This example at Coom is sub-circular in plan, measuring 39 metres north to south and just under 30 metres east to west. Its earthen bank survives to a height of 2.2 metres, though it runs lower on the northern side, where the builders raised the interior ground level to compensate for the natural slope of the hillside. To the east, faint traces of a fosse, the external ditch that would have accompanied the bank, can still be made out. A second ringfort lies to the north, on the far side of the river, suggesting that this stretch of the Coom valley once supported a small cluster of early settlement.