It is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands survive across Ireland, but each one carries its own small peculiarities of position and construction, and this one is no exception.

The enclosure measures approximately 32 metres across from north to south, defined by a low bank of earth and stone, a shallow fosse (the term for the ditch that typically runs outside such a bank), a low external bank beyond that, and an outer berm, a flat ledge of ground between the ditch and the outer bank, ranging from two to ten metres in width. The entrance gap is still visible on the north-east side, which is a common orientation for ringfort entrances. What gives this particular site an added layer of interest is the way the modern townland boundary with Ranahinch cuts directly across the berm from the north-west, meaning the administrative line between two parcels of land has been drawn straight through the outer edge of a structure that predates any such division by well over a millennium. The lough lies only 140 metres to the north-north-east, and another ringfort sits 215 metres to the south-west, a reminder that these enclosures rarely existed in isolation but formed part of a broader settled landscape.