Look more closely, however, and the ground tells a more complicated story. The interior sits at a higher level than the surrounding land, and running along the north-east through to the south-east of that interior is what appears to be an internal fosse, a kind of ditch or depression, roughly 2.5 metres wide and 1.2 metres deep. That combination, a raised floor within the enclosure and an internal rather than external ditch, gives this particular rath a slightly unusual character among Kerry's ringforts.

Ringforts are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, built and occupied broadly during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, and typically serving as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small community. They generally consist of a circular bank of earth or stone enclosing a domestic interior. This example at Dromkeen has an internal diameter of 30 metres north to south, with a bank that is 5 metres wide at the base, rising to 2 metres on its external face and 1 metre internally. It was already recognisable as a circular enclosure on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1841 to 1842, though even by the time of its survey for the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995 by Catherine Toal, the site had been considerably disturbed. The most visible modern intrusion is a shed erected to the north-north-west, which has punched a gap through the bank at that point, breaking what would otherwise have been a nearly complete circuit.