On the south side of this roughly circular enclosure at Lisduff, the builders raised the earthen bank higher to compensate for the natural drop of the slope, so that its outer face stands between 1.7 and 2 metres tall where the ground falls away beneath it. On the north arc, where the terrain is more level, the bank is lower and more evenly expressed on both faces. The result is a structure that reads differently depending on where you stand around it, shaped as much by the hillside as by the hands that built it.

A rath, the Irish term for this type of ringfort, is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and used to protect a family and their livestock. The Lisduff example measures 34.8 metres north to south, with a bank roughly 3.5 metres wide. On the north side, a band of slightly softer ground just outside the bank may be what remains of a fosse, the external ditch that would originally have added to the enclosure's defensive depth. On the eastern side, what appears to be the original entrance gap, about 2 metres wide, has been blocked up by later drystone walling, suggesting the site continued to be of practical use long after its original function had passed. Stone facing visible on the outer slope of the bank is similarly a later addition, folded into a property boundary at some point. Beneath the south-west quadrant of the interior lies a souterrain, an underground stone-built passage or chamber of the kind often associated with early medieval settlements, possibly used for storage or refuge.

The site sits at the break of slope at the top of a steep south-west-facing hillside, commanding open views to the east and south-west, though the ridge restricts the outlook to the north and north-east. Today the perimeter is heavily overgrown with hawthorn, blackthorn and ash, and the bank itself has been worn by tree roots and rabbit burrows, its sod largely gone. The interior has begun to fill in with encroaching scrub.