What survives is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was the dominant form of rural enclosure in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. Farmers and their families lived within these earthen rings, which served as much as a statement of status and territory as they did a practical defence.

The Rakane example is a well-defined specimen. The interior measures 31.4 metres in diameter, enclosed by a substantial earthen bank with a wide, deep fosse, the ditch that would originally have reinforced the bank's defensive profile. Much of that fosse has silted and filled in along the arc running from west-southwest around through north to southeast, a gradual process of centuries rather than deliberate destruction. What remains particularly clear is the original entrance, marked by a deliberate break in the bank on the southern side, with a causeway crossing the fosse, precisely the kind of controlled access point that characterises well-preserved examples of the type. The site appeared as 'Fort' on the Ordnance Survey editions of 1836, suggesting it was still a legible feature in the landscape at the time of the first systematic mapping of Ireland, a detail that hints at how prominent the earthworks must once have been.