A turlough is a type of disappearing lake, unique to limestone karst country in Ireland, which floods in winter and drains away through the rock in summer, leaving bare ground behind. The earthwork looks out over this shifting, unreliable landscape with what feels like a deliberately chosen vantage.

The site is a rath, the most common form of early medieval settlement in Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. It consists of a circular bank enclosing a roughly 25-metre-diameter interior, with an external fosse, or ditch, running around the outside. What makes this particular example notable is the sheer scale of its earthworks relative to its modest footprint. The inner face of the bank rises around two metres above the interior floor, while the outer face climbs to between four and a half and five metres above the base of the fosse. The fosse itself is flat-bottomed, around four and a half metres wide and a metre deep below external ground level. These are substantial, well-preserved proportions. Gaps in the bank at the east and west probably mark original entrance points. The whole circuit is heavily overgrown with hawthorn and briars, and at the time of the site's archaeological inspection the interior could not be entered at all due to the density of the vegetation.