The rath at Easterfield occupies a low rise in undulating grassland, its bank defining a subcircular enclosure measuring roughly 36.8 metres east to west and 24.2 metres north to south, with a gap on the western side that looks to be a modern intrusion rather than an original entrance. It overlooks Ballaghdacker Lough to the south, a position that would have offered both outlook and a degree of natural defence.

A rath, in general terms, is a ringfort, the most common monument type in the Irish landscape, typically interpreted as an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1200 AD, defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. What sets this example apart from the many isolated ringforts dotted across Ireland is its proximity to two crannogs lying to the southwest, one at roughly 320 metres and another at around 500 metres. A crannog is an artificial or partially artificial island constructed in a lake or wetland, also associated with the early medieval period and generally understood as a high-status or defended dwelling. The presence of both a rath on elevated ground and two crannogs in the adjacent lakeshore zone within such a short distance of one another suggests this area may have supported a relatively dense and interconnected pattern of settlement, with people making use of both the dry ridgeland and the water's edge at more or less the same period of history.