The ground has been levelled, the old field boundaries that once ran up to its edges have been removed, and yet the rath at Gorteenavalla persists as a slightly raised ring, just legible against the surrounding grassland if the light is right.

A rath is an early medieval enclosure, typically of the first millennium AD, formed by a circular earthen bank and sometimes a surrounding ditch, used as a farmstead or family settlement. This one measures roughly 27 metres across, with a bank about 3.6 metres wide. Its internal height is now barely 30 centimetres above the enclosed ground, and the exterior rise is only 70 centimetres, figures that speak to centuries of agricultural attrition. A gap on the northern side, approximately 3.4 metres wide, is a plausible original entrance. Early Ordnance Survey mapping recorded field boundaries converging on the south-west and north-east quadrants of the enclosure, a detail suggesting the rath was once integrated into a working agricultural landscape that has since been reorganised entirely around it.