What makes this particular rath, or ringfort, quietly arresting is what lies beneath it: a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber of the kind typically used in early medieval Ireland for storage, refuge, or both, cut into the south-western quadrant of the interior. Above ground, the site reads as a modest grassy mound; below, there is a whole other dimension to the place.

The ringfort itself follows a well-established early medieval form, in use roughly from the fifth to the twelfth century, when thousands of such enclosures were built across Ireland as defended farmsteads for families of varying social rank. Two earthen banks once defined this example clearly, separated by a fosse, a defensive ditch, that still drops to around 1.6 metres in depth. The inner bank survives to about 0.8 metres in height, though it and the intervening fosse are now heavily overgrown. The outer bank, once 0.4 metres high, has been largely levelled, worn down by centuries of agricultural activity on the east-facing slope. An entrance, 3.2 metres wide and fitted with a causeway, opens to the east, which is a common orientation for ringfort entrances and may reflect practical considerations around morning light and prevailing weather. The site is recorded in D. Lavelle's 1994 archaeological survey of Ballinrobe and district, covering the broader area around Lough Mask and Lough Carra.

The souterrain in the south-western interior is the feature that would repay closest attention. These underground structures were carefully built, often with corbelled or lintelled roofing, and their presence within a rath suggests the enclosure was home to a household of some means and organisation. The combination of a bivallate, or double-banked, enclosure with a souterrain places this site among the more elaborate examples of its type, even if the surface today gives little away beyond a broad, softly humped circle slowly being reclaimed by grass and scrub.