What marks it out is a combination of features that only become legible once you know what you are looking for: an earthen bank running from the east-north-east around to the west, a scarped, or artificially cut, edge completing the circuit on the opposite side, and a fosse, essentially a ditch, running around the full circumference. That fosse drops only about half a metre in depth and stretches roughly three metres across, modest by any measure, yet it closes the ring completely. Trees and scrub have colonised the enclosing bank over time, and cattle have worn gaps through it at the north-west and south-south-east, so the outline is easier to trace on a map than on the ground.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval settlement monument in the country. Ringforts were typically the enclosed farmsteads of prosperous families in the period roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, their earthen banks and ditches defining a boundary between domestic space and the surrounding landscape rather than serving any serious military purpose. The Drewscourt East example was recorded and compiled by Denis Power, with the survey uploaded in August 2011. The technical measurements he noted, an internal bank height of 0.3 metres on the inside face rising to 0.8 metres on the exterior, and a scarped edge reaching 0.9 metres in height with a spread of four metres, suggest a structure that has survived reasonably well beneath its covering of scrub and grass, even if centuries of agricultural use have softened its profile considerably.

The site sits in level pasture, which means the enclosing elements are subtle and require a slow walk around the perimeter to appreciate fully. The treeline growing along the bank is actually a useful guide, since it traces the arc of the original boundary more clearly than the earthworks themselves in places. The gaps worn by cattle at the north-west and south-south-east give an unobstructed view into the level interior, which remains under pasture. This is farmland, so any visit would require the landowner's permission, and the ground underfoot is likely to be soft in wetter months. There are no interpretive signs or formal access points; the reward here is the quiet work of reading the landscape itself.