It is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typically built between the early medieval period and around 1000 AD, when they were among the most common forms of settlement across the country. Thousands survive in Ireland, but most are either well-documented landmarks or have been ploughed flat. This one occupies an awkward middle ground: present, measurable, and largely ignored.

The earthwork is substantial. It spans roughly fifty metres north to south and forty-three metres east to west, enclosed by a low earthen bank and a shallow external fosse, the term for the ditch that typically runs around the outer edge of such a structure and whose spoil was used to raise the bank inside. Neither element is in its original condition. The perimeter has been cut away at the south-west, south-east, and north-east, the fosse has been filled in along the northern arc, and the interior, which rises gently toward the centre, has been planted with coniferous trees. The cumulative effect is of a place that has been quietly worked against over decades, its defining geometry softened by both deliberate intervention and the indifference of plantation forestry.