The Ordnance Survey's first six-inch map, produced in 1842, shows what appears to be a roughly square enclosure, about 45 metres across. By the time the surveyors returned for the 1905 revision, the same site had been redrawn as a circular enclosure with a diameter of around 25 metres, ringed by a fosse. The 1937 map repeated the circular reading. Whether the difference reflects genuine change on the ground, a shift in surveying conventions, or simply a corrected interpretation, the discrepancy is left unresolved, and the two versions sit in the record like two accounts of the same event that cannot quite be reconciled.

Raths, as these earthen ringforts are commonly known, were the typical farmstead enclosure of early medieval Ireland, built and occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They consist of a roughly circular bank of earth, often with an outer ditch or fosse, enclosing a living and working area. The one at Lackeel sits on higher ground above a nearby stream, a positioning typical of the type, offering both drainage and a degree of natural defence. What survives today is modest but legible: an earthen bank rising about 0.4 metres on the interior, with an external fosse reaching a depth of around 1.2 metres. A possible counterscarp bank, a secondary ridge thrown up on the outer lip of the ditch to increase its defensive profile, survives to the north-west as a low, wide feature. The entrance, just 1.2 metres wide, opens to the north-west, and to the south the line of the fosse breaks briefly, giving way to a steep drop toward the stream some eight or nine metres from the base of the bank.

The site is heavily overgrown and sits in pasture, which means the earthworks are present but require some patience to read. The entrance gap and the fosse depression are the clearest features to locate; the possible counterscarp to the north-west is subtler, and easy to miss without knowing to look for it. The proximity of the stream to the south, and the abrupt change in gradient near the fosse break, give a sense of how the original builders used the natural topography rather than relying on earthworks alone.