A rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland, was typically the enclosed farmstead of a single family or household, its earthen bank and surrounding ditch providing a degree of security for livestock and people alike rather than any serious military defence. Here, that bank survives only poorly, and the external fosse, the shallow ditch dug to throw up the bank material, is now little more than a slight depression.

The monument measures approximately twenty-five metres across on its north-east to south-west axis and twenty-four metres on the north-north-east to south-south-west, making it a relatively modest example of its type. Field fences, the slow accumulation of agricultural reorganisation over the centuries, have cut across the interior and intersected the perimeter, and one such fence has since been levelled, leaving its own trace in the ground. The humps and hollows visible inside the raised area may represent the footprints of former structures or simply the disturbance caused by centuries of farming activity. Dervotstown Castle lies around 470 metres to the south-west, a reminder that this corner of Westmeath has been continuously settled and worked across very different periods and social orders, the rath itself likely predating the castle by several centuries.