This is a rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland, typically a circular earthen enclosure that once surrounded a farmstead or high-status dwelling during the early medieval period, roughly between 500 and 1000 AD. Most people walk past them without a second thought, reading them as slight irregularities in a field.

The platform here measures approximately 37.6 metres north to south and 38.8 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial example. It is defined by a scarp, a low earthen edge or slope, that survives to about 0.8 metres in height on the northern side, though it has been partly levelled over time. On the eastern to southern arc, a shallow depression running three to four metres wide may represent a fosse, the outer ditch that would once have reinforced the enclosure's boundary. At the north-east, the scarp shows a broader, more pronounced slump in the earthwork, which is thought to be the remnant of the original entrance. Views from the site are open and wide to the north and east across a broad sweep of grassland, though a low rise in the ground closes things off to the south. Adding further interest to the immediate landscape, another enclosure sits approximately 125 metres to the north-east, raising the possibility that this part of Mallaroe once supported more than one contemporaneous settlement.