The problem is its shape. Ringforts, the most common type of early medieval enclosure in Ireland, are characteristically circular or nearly so. This one is distinctly polygonal, measuring roughly 58 metres northeast to southwest and 36 metres northwest to southeast, enclosed by a low earthen bank and a wide, shallow external fosse. A fosse is simply a ditch dug to reinforce the bank beside it. The straight-edged southern side, where a later field fence cuts across the site, adds to the sense that something more deliberate and less domestic was going on here.

The strongest clue to the earthwork's true purpose lies in its address. It sits in the townland of Grange, and in medieval Ireland the word "grange" almost always signals monastic farmland. Granges were agricultural estates managed by religious houses, worked to feed the community and generate income. Just one kilometre to the north-northeast lies Tristernagh Priory, an Augustinian house whose monks would have needed exactly this kind of managed land. The priory is also flanked, 700 metres to the north, by Templecross church and graveyard, giving the wider landscape a distinctly ecclesiastical character. The stream marking the townland boundary with Tristernagh runs only 20 metres from the earthwork's northern edge, placing it right at the margin of what would have been the priory's territory. Inside the enclosure, faint traces of cultivation ridges survive in the sloping interior, suggesting the ground was actively farmed at some point rather than simply enclosed for livestock or defence.

The site sits in open grassland that can be wet and difficult underfoot, particularly in wetter months. The low bank is easy to miss at a distance, but the wide fosse becomes more legible from the interior, where the slight northwest-to-southeast slope helps define the earthwork's outline. The proximity of Tristernagh Priory makes a combined visit worthwhile for anyone interested in how monastic communities shaped and marked the land around them.