Surveyors working the site found dense growth covering everything within the enclosure, leaving only the outer faces of the earthwork exposed to any kind of observation. That the place could be recorded at all is a small archaeological achievement in itself.

A ringfort, or rath, is one of the most common monument types in the Irish landscape, typically a circular or oval enclosure defined by an earthen bank and ditch, and used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. The Cummeen example follows the basic form: an oval area enclosed by an earthen bank roughly two metres wide, with the exterior face standing just over a metre high on the northern side and rising to around one and a half metres on the south. Beyond the main bank lies a fosse, the surrounding ditch that once added to the enclosure's defensive or symbolic boundary, roughly three and a third metres wide. To the north only, there is a further, slighter external bank, its interior face less than a metre high and its exterior barely visible above ground level at fifteen centimetres. No trace of an entrance survived, or at least none could be identified during the survey, which adds a further layer of opacity to a site that already resists easy reading.