The trees give it an enclosed, almost secretive quality from a distance, the canopy pressing down inside an earthen bank that has held its shape for well over a thousand years. The waterlogged ditch surrounding most of it adds to the atmosphere, a still, dark band of water that has sat there, largely undisturbed, for much of the site's existence.

This is a rath, one of the most common monument types in the Irish landscape. Raths are ringforts, roughly circular enclosures defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built primarily during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, as farmsteads and enclosed settlements for a single family or small community. The example at Rathfreedy is a substantial one. Its circular area measures 52 metres in diameter, enclosed by an earthen bank that stands 1.2 metres high on the interior side and a considerably more imposing 3.1 metres when measured from the base of the external fosse, the defensive ditch that runs around the outside. That fosse is 1.9 metres deep and nearly five metres wide, which would have made the whole structure a meaningful physical barrier. A gap in the northern bank, 1.8 metres wide, marks the original entrance, and a causeway 3.8 metres across spans the fosse at that point to provide access. The record was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011.

The site sits in ordinary agricultural land, so access will depend on landowner permission and the usual courtesies of the Irish countryside. Worth noting is that the fosse on the western to north-western arc has been partially infilled with refuse over the years, which somewhat diminishes the profile on that side, while the rest of the ditch remains waterlogged and largely intact. Once inside, the level interior and the overhead canopy of sycamore and whitethorn give the space a quality quite different from the open pasture surrounding it, a useful reminder that what looks like a tree-covered mound from the road was once a working, inhabited enclosure.