The rath at Gurteen sits in the southern tip of a triangle of land formed where three roads converge, the routes connecting Dingle, Anascaul, and Castlemaine effectively isolating the small parcel of ground on which it stands. The enclosure is modest in scale, measuring roughly 18.7 metres north to south and 15 metres east to west, and what survives of its surrounding bank barely reaches half a metre in height. The south-eastern arc of the perimeter was further damaged when one of the roads was laid down, so the site now presents itself as a partial outline, a stony rim on a gentle south-facing slope about fifty metres west of the Owenascaul river.

A univallate ringfort, meaning one enclosed by a single bank and ditch rather than the multiple concentric rings found at more elaborate sites, would typically have served as a farmstead during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries. Most contained a dwelling and ancillary structures, and some were equipped with a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage used for storage or, in times of threat, concealment. A researcher named Ashe recorded just such a souterrain here in 1954, but by the time the Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey was compiled by J. Cuppage in 1986, no trace of it remained visible. What can be seen now is a rectangular area, approximately 5.5 by 4.7 metres, defined on its southern and eastern sides by stones and on its northern side by a low earthen mound, the last legible geometry of whatever once stood inside the enclosure.