Its defining feature, a low bank of earth and stone, has been partly obscured by generations of field clearance, the gradual accumulation of stones shifted by farmers making use of nearby ground. What remains is an oval enclosure, roughly 31.5 metres north to south and 28.5 metres east to west, its bank ranging between 3.5 and 5 metres wide and still rising to between one and two and a half metres in places.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type surviving in the Irish countryside. Ringforts were typically the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, in use roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and they come in many forms: some are defined by ditches, or fosses, cut into the earth, others by banks alone, and the grandest by multiple concentric enclosures. This one at Gowle shows no trace of a fosse, and no obvious entrance or internal features have been identified. What makes the site quietly interesting from an engineering point of view is its north-eastern side, where the builders cut into the hillside to create a steep artificial scarp two metres high, effectively using the slope itself as part of the enclosure's structure. It is a practical solution, saving labour on the uphill side while reinforcing the sense of a bounded, defended space.