This is a rath, the Irish term for an earthen ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead built and occupied predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands of them survive across Ireland, yet most pass unremarked by anyone without reason to go looking.

This particular example at Gorteen measures approximately 32 metres in diameter. It consists of a circular earthen bank, which rises about 55 centimetres on its interior face and a more substantial 1.25 metres on the exterior, reinforced by an external fosse, or ditch, roughly 85 centimetres deep and just under two metres wide. The difference in height between the inner and outer faces of the bank is typical of the form; the ditch material was dug out and piled inward, creating a defensive gradient. A field boundary has cut across the eastern to southern arc of the fosse at some point, truncating it and obscuring what would once have been a continuous circuit. The site was recorded and compiled by Denis Power, with details uploaded in August 2011.

The site lies on ground that slopes gently eastward, which would have aided drainage for whoever once enclosed their household and livestock within it. Today, dense overgrowth covers most of the interior, making it difficult to read the earthworks clearly from within. Visitors approaching on foot across pasture will find the bank most legible where the vegetation thins, and the truncated fosse is easiest to trace on the western and northern sides where the field boundary has not disturbed it. There is nothing formally managed here, no signage, no path; it is simply a feature of a working agricultural landscape, and any visit should be made with landowner permission and with an eye for uneven ground beneath the scrub.