What defines it are two concentric earthen banks with a fosse between them, a fosse being simply a ditch, dug to reinforce the defensive profile of the enclosure. That ditch has vanished from view along the eastern to south-eastern arc, either silted up or smoothed away by centuries of farming and weather, while the western side has been more directly dealt with: both banks have been quarried there, leaving a visible gap where material was removed, probably as a convenient source of earth or stone for some later agricultural purpose.

Ringforts of this kind were the dominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth century, serving as enclosed farmsteads rather than military fortifications in any strict sense. A double-banked example like this one would have indicated a household of some local standing, since the extra labour of throwing up a second bank and digging a second ditch was not undertaken without reason. What makes the Creevaghbaun example particularly interesting is a detail at the northern edge: an earthen bank radiates outward from the monument there, possibly associated with the rath itself, though its exact purpose is uncertain. It may represent a former field boundary, a funnel for livestock, or some structural element of the original enclosure whose logic has not survived the intervening centuries.