Where a typical rath consists of a single earthen bank and ditch enclosing a farmstead, this one runs to two concentric banks, an intervening fosse between them, and a further outer fosse beyond, giving the whole enclosure a layered, almost ceremonial depth. A ringfort, or rath, was the standard form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically housing a farming family and their animals within a banked and ditched enclosure that doubled as a status marker as much as a defensive structure. The addition of multiple banks and ditches generally signals higher social standing, and the presence here of that doubled earthwork system sets Knockaneacoolteen apart from the simpler, single-banked examples that dot the Kerry landscape.

The enclosure measures roughly 37 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial example. The inner bank is about 5.4 metres wide and rises to approximately a metre in height, while the outer bank is wider still at 6.3 metres. What makes the construction particularly interesting is the rough stone-facing preserved on the internal face of the inner bank along its south-western arc, a detail that suggests the builders were reinforcing or perhaps finishing the earthwork with local stone, though the rest of the circuit relies on earth alone. A shallow intermittent rise along the same south-western stretch, just outside the outer fosse, hints that the complexity of the site may not yet be fully understood. Buried within the heavily overgrown interior, there is a possible hut site in the south-western quadrant, which would have been the kind of small domestic structure where the occupants of the rath actually lived and worked.