The site is a rath, a type of ringfort consisting of a circular enclosure defined by an earthen bank, and this one measures roughly 42 metres across. Its bank stands about 1.3 metres high both inside and out, with a shallow external fosse, essentially a ditch, surviving on the south-west side to a depth of around 0.3 metres. A farm shed has been built directly against the outer face of the bank on the south-east side, which says something about the pragmatic relationship between Irish farming life and the ancient earthworks that farmers have been quietly incorporating into their yards and field boundaries for generations.

Raths were typically constructed during the early medieval period, broadly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads for ordinary agricultural families as well as higher-status households. They are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, yet each one accumulates its own particular history of survival and disturbance. At Gneeves, the bank is partially overgrown with trees and worn in places by animal activity, the ordinary pressures of a site that has never left agricultural use. More telling is a low mound, roughly 3 metres by 2 metres, that sits in the south-east quadrant of the interior. Local tradition holds that this disturbed ground was caused by people digging in search of a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that often ran beneath the interior of a ringfort and served as a place of storage or refuge. Whether the souterrain was ever found is not recorded.