This is a rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland, essentially a circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built to protect a family, their livestock, and their status in the landscape. What makes the example at Issane worth pausing over is the way its defences were constructed using more than one technique, combining a raised bank with a scarped edge, that is, a slope cut directly into the natural hillside to create an artificial drop.

The site sits on an east-facing slope just below the brow of a hill, a position that would have offered both drainage and a degree of natural elevation. The enclosure is nearly circular, measuring 27 metres north to south and 26.8 metres east to west. The earthen bank that defines most of the perimeter stands about one metre high on the interior and rises to 1.5 metres on the outside, figures recorded by Denis Power, who compiled the site notes uploaded in August 2011. From the north-northeast around to the southeast, the bank gives way to a scarped edge measuring 2.3 metres high and 1.9 metres wide, using the slope of the hill itself as part of the enclosure's defences. Perhaps most interesting is the evidence of inner stone-facing along the southeastern to southwestern arc of the bank, suggesting that whoever built or later maintained this rath had access to stone and used it to reinforce the earthwork from the inside. There are two gaps in the bank, one at the west-southwest measuring just over 2.3 metres wide, and a slightly wider one at the north-northwest, either or both of which may mark original entranceways.

The interior, now under pasture like the surrounding fields, slopes gently downward toward the east. There is no public interpretive signage noted for the site, and access would depend on the goodwill of the landowner, as is common with ringforts on private agricultural land in Ireland. The bank is described as best preserved along its northern to north-northeastern arc, so that section rewards the closest attention. The stone-facing remnants along the southern interior edge are subtler and easier to miss if the grass is long. Early morning or late afternoon light, which throws low shadows across earthworks, tends to make the relief of a rath's banks far more readable than it appears at midday.