Easy to walk past without a second glance, they are the surviving remains of a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the most common form of rural settlement in Ireland between roughly the sixth and tenth centuries. Tens of thousands once dotted the landscape; many have been ploughed flat or built over, making those that remain all the more quietly significant.

This particular example is a bivallate ringfort, meaning it has two concentric earthen banks rather than the single bank more commonly encountered. The inner enclosure measures approximately 34 metres east-northeast to west-southwest and around 33 metres north-northwest to south-southeast, forming a roughly circular space that would once have contained a farmstead, perhaps a timber house, animal pens, and ancillary structures. The inner bank rises to about 2.1 metres in internal height on its northeast to northwest arc, accompanied by an external fosse, the term for a ditch dug to provide the material for the bank and to add a defensive or boundary function. A second bank, standing slightly taller at 2.2 metres, survives along the northeast to south-southwest line, with its own outer fosse reaching a depth of around one metre. The line of both banks can still be read across the ground as a gentle but perceptible rise from northwest to northeast, the kind of subtle earthwork that rewards careful looking rather than a casual glance.