The structure measures around 26 metres in diameter, with a bank varying between two and just over three metres in width. From inside the enclosure, the bank rises less than a metre; from outside, it can reach over one and a half metres, giving it a modest but deliberate presence on the slope.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type surviving in the Irish countryside. Ringforts were typically enclosed farmsteads of the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1000 AD, built to protect a household and its livestock rather than to serve any grand military purpose. The bank at Rathgorragh is constructed of stone rather than earthen material, and at the north-east side, where the ground rises upslope, there are faint traces of an external fosse, a shallow defensive ditch, adding a little extra discouragement to anyone approaching from the higher ground. The entrance, two metres wide, faces south-west, a positioning that would have offered some shelter from prevailing winds and perhaps maximised morning light into the enclosed space. No evidence of internal features has been identified, so what stood within the ring, whether a house, a souterrain (an underground stone-lined passage sometimes used for storage or refuge), or other structures, remains unknown.