It is easy to walk past without registering what it is, yet this modest mound is the surviving outline of a rath, the most common type of early medieval settlement in Ireland. A rath, sometimes called a ringfort, was typically a farmstead enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, offering a degree of protection for a family and their livestock. Thousands once dotted the Irish countryside; many have been ploughed flat or absorbed into later field systems, which makes the survival of even a degraded example worth noting.

The bank here still stands to a height of about 1.5 metres, and earlier observation recorded traces of an outer ditch and bank beyond the main enclosure, suggesting this was once a more elaborate structure than the single ring visible today. That outer earthwork detail comes from a 1939 observation by Hartnett, writing at a time when the surrounding landscape may have preserved more of the original form. Since then, the field fences that once criss-crossed the area have been removed, leaving the earthwork sitting in open pasture. The interior is described as overgrown and inaccessible, so the bank itself is the main thing to read from the outside, its curve tracing the perimeter of a household that would have stood here perhaps twelve or fourteen centuries ago.