This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the type of enclosed farmstead that was built in its thousands across Ireland during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Most were the homes of farming families of middling status, their enclosing banks serving as much as a social statement as a practical defence. This one, at roughly thirty-five metres in diameter, is a fairly typical example in scale, though its construction is a little more deliberate than many.

The enclosing bank rises to around 1.4 metres and sits on top of a scarp, an artificially cut or shaped slope, that adds another 2.4 metres of effective height. The bank is stone-faced, meaning its outer surface was revetted with stonework rather than simply piled up as bare earth, which would have given it a more solid and permanent appearance. A shallow fosse, the ditch dug to provide material for the bank and to reinforce the sense of enclosure, runs around the outside. Trees have since been planted along the bank, as was common practice in later centuries when such earthworks were often regarded with a mixture of superstition and pragmatic usefulness. Inside the enclosure, there may be a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber typically built from stone and used in early medieval Ireland for storage or, in times of trouble, as a place of concealment. Its presence has not been confirmed, but the possibility alone suggests the site repays closer attention than a passing glance across a grazed hillside might suggest.