The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was typically a circular or subcircular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used as a farmstead and residence during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands of these structures survive across Ireland, but this particular example has fared worse than most.

The rath at Gorteen is subcircular in plan, measuring just over thirty metres across on its north-south axis. What survives is confined to one arc of the original enclosure: two banks with an intervening fosse, the fosse being the ditch cut between or outside the banks, running from the south through the west and around to the north. Beyond that partial arc, no surface trace remains. The interior, once the enclosed living space of whoever farmed and sheltered here more than a thousand years ago, is currently in use as a dump.