The ringfort that contains it sits on a north-northeast-facing slope, its earthen bank still standing over three metres high in places, encircling an interior that tilts gently downward toward the northeast. What makes this particular rath quietly compelling is not the bank alone, nor the external fosse, a ditch cut into the ground outside the bank to deepen the sense of enclosure, but the souterrain concealed within. A souterrain is an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, built during the early medieval period and used variously for storage, refuge, or both. Their presence inside a ringfort almost always signals that whoever lived here had something worth protecting, or somewhere to disappear to when circumstances demanded it.

Ringforts of this kind are among the most common early medieval monument types in Ireland, yet each one carries its own particular arrangement. This example measures roughly 36 metres north to south and 34 metres east to west, making it a substantial enclosure of the sort that would once have contained a farmstead of some consequence. The earthen bank is accompanied by a fosse running from the east around to the north-northwest, and a gap two metres wide to the east almost certainly marks the original entrance. The site lies approximately two kilometres south-southwest of Ballynacarriga Castle and its associated lake, a landscape already layered with centuries of human activity. At some point, a single line of conifers was planted along the outside of the bank between north and east, a relatively modern addition that now forms a quiet windbreak around one arc of the ancient enclosure.