No banks, no ditches, none of the earthwork definition that typically survives for centuries at sites of this kind. What remains at Dirtane today is a low, irregular mound measuring roughly 26 metres by 16 metres and standing just 0.8 metres above the surrounding ground, easy to walk past without a second glance.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, were enclosed farmsteads built mostly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, yet their survival varies enormously depending on land use, drainage schemes, and agricultural improvement over the centuries. The enclosure at Dirtane appears to have been lost entirely above ground between the mid-nineteenth century and the present day. What the low mound may indicate, however, is something subterranean. Archaeologists working from C. Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995, suggested it could mark the collapsed remains of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that was typically associated with ringforts, used variously for storage, shelter, or refuge. If that interpretation is correct, the mound is less a remnant of the fort itself and more a ghost of something built beneath it.