The northern enclosure at Kiltanna sits in level pasture, a circular earthwork roughly 29 metres in diameter, its interior now shaded by mature trees that have grown up inside the old boundary. The bank that defines it rises just half a metre on the interior but climbs to 1.65 metres when measured from outside, the difference explained by the fosse, an external ditch, that runs around its outer edge. That ditch is about 2 metres wide and 0.6 metres deep, enough to have made the whole structure a meaningful barrier in its day.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when constructed from earth rather than stone, were the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, roughly from the fifth to the twelfth century. Most were farmsteads, the home of a single family and their livestock, with the encircling bank and ditch providing security against opportunistic cattle raids rather than organised military attack. What makes Kiltanna worth particular attention is that this rath is conjoined on its southern side with a second, similar enclosure. The outer edge of that southern enclosure sits just 4 metres south of the outer edge of the northern fosse, making the two structures immediate neighbours rather than merely proximate ones. Whether they were built simultaneously or one followed the other is not recorded, but the pairing is uncommon enough to suggest a deliberate relationship between the two enclosures, perhaps a single extended household, or two closely related families working adjacent land.

The interior of the northern enclosure is described as level and clear of undergrowth beneath its canopy of trees, which makes reading the ground surface easier than at many comparable sites where vegetation obscures the earthworks. The bank and ditch are the main features to trace on a visit, and the relationship between the two conjoined enclosures is best appreciated by walking the southern perimeter, where the proximity of the second rath becomes immediately apparent. As with most earthwork sites in Irish pasture, the monument is most legible in low winter light or in early morning, when raking shadows pick out the subtle changes in ground level that photographs taken in full summer sun tend to flatten entirely.