The ground rises in a roughly circular platform, and along its western to north-north-eastern arc, an earth and stone bank still stands to a height of around 1.3 metres, enclosing what was once a defended farmstead. The eastern and southern edges have been cut away by field boundaries at some point in the intervening centuries, leaving the monument incomplete but still legible in the landscape.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common class of archaeological monument found across Ireland. Ringforts were typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or extended household. The bank, sometimes accompanied by a ditch, defined the boundary of the settlement and offered a degree of protection for livestock and inhabitants alike. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, though many have been lost to agriculture and development over the past few centuries. The example at Maulyregan survives as a raised area in otherwise flat pasture, positioned on a hillock in a way that would have offered its original occupants a modest but useful elevation over the surrounding ground.