What was once a roughly circular enclosure of around 28 metres across is now only semicircular in plan; the northwest to southeast arc of the enclosing earthen bank and its accompanying fosse, a defensive ditch cut to reinforce the bank's exterior, has largely vanished, with only faint traces remaining at the east-southeast. A later field boundary has been built directly on top of the surviving fosse, and a roadside boundary cuts through what remains of the northern arc. The interior itself is bisected by a north-south field division. Agriculture and time have quietly dismantled much of what was here.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when earthen rather than stone-built, were the dominant settlement form of early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its outbuildings within a raised bank and ditch. The earthwork at Rougham is modest by the standards of the form, with the interior bank standing only about fifteen centimetres above the interior ground level, though the external face drops some 2.6 metres to the base of the fosse. What distinguishes this site more than its dimensions is the presence of a souterrain within the enclosure. Souterrains are underground stone-lined passages or chambers, often associated with ringforts, and thought to have served as refuges, storage spaces, or both. The relationship between the souterrain and the rath above it suggests a reasonably substantial settlement once occupied this hillock, looking southeast over the valley and sheltered on other sides by the steep-sided mountains that ring the area.