It is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands of these enclosures survive across Ireland, yet each one carries the faint outline of a household, a family's decision about where to settle and how to mark their ground.

This particular example measures forty-eight metres across its north-south axis and is defined by a stone-faced earthen bank that still stands to a height of one and a half metres. That combination, an earthen core given a more durable facing of stone, suggests some investment in permanence. The interior is level and slightly raised above the surrounding ground, a characteristic that often results from centuries of accumulated occupation debris. A gap in the bank to the south-east, measuring just over one and a half metres in width, marks what was almost certainly the original entrance, orientated to catch the morning sun and facing away from the prevailing Atlantic weather.