Where the earthen bank and external fosse, a shallow defensive ditch, do the work on the north-east to north-west arc, the site's builders simply used what the landscape provided on the other side: a sharp natural drop down to the Comeenatrush River. The result is a subcircular enclosure that feels almost casually confident about its own security, the ground falling away steeply where a bank would otherwise have been built.

The rath, as this type of earthwork enclosure is generally called, measures approximately 40.5 metres east to west and 38 metres north to south. Its earthen bank stands 1.4 metres high on the interior side and 2.1 metres on the exterior, with the fosse reaching about half a metre in depth. An entrance, five metres wide, opens to the east-north-east. Just inside the defences, the central area of the interior is noticeably raised, and in the southern half there is a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage that typically served early medieval settlements as a place of refuge or storage. Souterrains are found at many Irish ringforts, but their presence always adds a certain weight to a site; the people who went to the trouble of constructing one expected to need it. A field boundary now follows the outer edge of the fosse, quietly tracing a defensive line that may be over a thousand years old.