This is a univallate rath, meaning a ringfort defended by a single enclosing bank rather than the multiple concentric rings that mark more elaborate examples. The bank here is well preserved, averaging 6.5 metres wide at its base and rising to a maximum of 2 metres on the outer face, with the interior sitting somewhat lower, between 0.8 and 2.6 metres below the bank's crest depending on where you measure. The overall enclosure measures roughly 34 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial example of its type.

Ringforts, sometimes called raths when they are earthen constructions rather than stone-built cashels, are among the most numerous field monuments in Ireland, with tens of thousands recorded across the country. Most date to the early medieval period, broadly the fifth to twelfth centuries, and functioned as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small farming community. The bank and its accompanying external fosse, a shallow ditch dug to provide material for the bank and to add a further deterrent to livestock straying or intruders entering, were as much a statement of social status as a practical defence. At this Kerry example, the fosse survives most clearly to the south and south-east, where it remains 1.6 metres wide and 0.5 metres deep. The enclosing bank has three breaks along that same southern arc, but the likeliest original entrance is the south-eastern gap, which is 3 metres wide and where the fosse curves inward towards the opening in the way that characterises a deliberate, designed threshold rather than later damage or collapse.