The bank itself was already being absorbed into the local field system, its edges pressed into service as a boundary between pastures. The stones were exposed briefly, then largely forgotten. What the farmer had been levelling was a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead typical of early medieval Ireland, and the moment of discovery was a quiet one, passed on only as local information rather than any formal record.

The ringfort at Shanaway sits on a gentle slope facing roughly north-northeast, and its circular form measures approximately 42.5 metres across on a northwest to southeast axis. A raised earthen bank, standing around 1.6 metres high, defines the northeastern to southeastern arc of the enclosure; the opposite side survives as a much lower rise. Ringforts, also known as raths, were the most common form of rural settlement in Ireland from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century, typically enclosing a family farmstead with one or more earthen banks and ditches. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation. At Shanaway, the bank has been incorporated into the modern field fence system along part of its circuit, which is a common fate for these monuments and one that both preserves the earthwork and gradually obscures it.