The enclosure at Kiltybrannock is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the most common type of rural settlement in the country between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. Typically circular or subcircular in plan, these enclosures were defined by one or more earthen banks and external ditches, and they housed a farming family along with their animals and outbuildings. Thousands survive across Ireland in varying states of preservation, but this one sits quietly on its ridge with most of its circuit either eroded away or absorbed into the surrounding landscape.

The surviving portion of the enclosure measures approximately 42 metres across its east to west axis. Where it can still be read, the bank is about four metres wide, rising just 0.3 metres on its interior face but a more substantial metre on the exterior, suggesting the ground drops away on the outer side. Along the northern arc, the bank retains some external facing stones, the remains of a stone revetment that would once have helped hold the earthwork together and given it a more defined appearance. Moving northeast, this structure reduces to a simple scarp, a worn slope of between half a metre and 0.7 metres, and from the east around to the southwest the perimeter cannot be traced at all. There is no visible fosse, the term for the ditch that normally accompanied such a bank, and no identifiable entrance survives.