The raised area near the middle of this rath measures only about five metres across and stands no more than fifteen centimetres proud of the surrounding grass. Easy to walk past without a second glance, it is the kind of feature that rewards those who already know what they are looking at.

A rath is an earthen ringfort, the most common monument type surviving in the Irish countryside, built predominantly during the early medieval period as a defended farmstead for a single family or small community. This particular example at Moanwing sits on a gentle slope facing east-northeast, with a marshy area bordering it to the south-southeast. The circular enclosure measures roughly 35 metres north to south and 34 metres east to west. Its boundary is defined partly by a scarped edge, that is, a deliberately cut or shaped slope in the ground, and partly by an earthen bank. The scarp, where best preserved along the east-northeast to south-southeast arc, reaches 0.65 metres in height and around 2.4 metres in width, though it diminishes to about 0.25 metres on the south-west to north-east stretch. A gap of approximately 6.5 metres in the scarp at the northeast likely marks the original entrance. The site was recorded and compiled by Denis Power, with the survey notes uploaded in August 2011.

The monument sits in working farmland, so access would require the landowner's permission. The low earthworks are most legible in winter or early spring, when grass is short and low sunlight casts the slight changes in ground level into sharper relief. The entrance gap on the northeast arc is the clearest single feature to locate first, and from there the curved line of the scarp can be traced around to where it meets the earthen bank on the southern side. The boggy ground to the south-southeast is worth noting underfoot, particularly after wet weather.