What makes this particular example worth pausing over is the detail that survives at its southern edge: a gap in the inner bank that may mark the original entrance, and across the fosse, the faint traces of a causeway that would once have carried people over the ditch and into the enclosed space. A fosse, in this context, is simply a defensive ditch dug between the banks, and its presence here alongside two earthen banks places this among the more elaborately defended examples of the rath type.

Raths, sometimes called ringforts, are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, with tens of thousands recorded across the country. Most date broadly to the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, and were typically used as enclosed farmsteads for a family of some local standing. This one at Gowla measures approximately thirty metres east to west and twenty-seven metres north to south, a subcircular shape rather than a perfect ring. The inner bank is clearly visible around much of the circuit, though from the north-north-east to the east, and again from the south-west to the north-north-west, the enclosure is defined instead by a natural or cut scarp rather than a built-up bank. A later field bank has been laid over the outer bank along the southern arc, running from the south-east around through south to west-north-west, which is a common fate for prehistoric and early medieval earthworks pressed into service as convenient boundaries by later farming generations.