The enclosure measures roughly 48 metres north to south and 44.5 metres east to west, which puts it comfortably within the range of a rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland. A rath is simply a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built mainly during the early medieval period as a defended farmstead for a single family and their livestock.

What makes this particular example worth pausing over is the way the ground works with the earthwork rather than against it. The interior of the enclosure slopes gently downward to the north, while outside the northern bank the land drops away steeply. That steep outer fall would have added considerably to the effective height of the bank when seen from below, making the north side the most defensively imposing face. The builder, whoever they were, read the slope carefully. The positioning also means that from inside the enclosure, the view opens northward over the Bride valley, a broad prospect that would have allowed anyone within to watch movement across a significant stretch of ground.