This one in Shanid Lower, County Limerick, sits on a south-east-facing slope with its southern perimeter not closed by any built bank at all, because the land simply drops away. Where an earthen enclosure would ordinarily complete the circuit, a near-vertical scarp takes over, falling some 2.35 metres to a natural ledge barely three metres wide, with the ravine beginning beyond that. Whoever chose this spot understood that the landscape itself could do the work of defence, or at least of enclosure.

Ringforts, sometimes called raths when earthen rather than stone-built, were the most common settlement type in early medieval Ireland, typically serving as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small household. Most are circular or near-circular; this one is oval, measuring roughly 26.5 metres north to south and around 30 metres east to west. The earthen bank that runs from the south-west around to the south-east is best preserved along its north-east arc, where the external face still stands nearly three metres high, though it drops to around 1.2 metres at the south-west. The scarped edge that replaces the bank along the southern side is almost certainly shaped in part by the natural topography rather than by deliberate construction alone. A field boundary runs around the outside of the scarp to the west and north-north-west, keeping a respectful distance of roughly 3.75 metres from its base. At the south-south-east, a degraded earth-and-stone field boundary abuts the enclosure directly, though another that once met it at the north-east has since been removed. The site was recorded and compiled by Denis Power, with notes uploaded in August 2011.

The interior slopes downward toward the south and is, by the recorded description, heavily masked by vegetation, which means that on the ground the shape of the place is easier to read from its outer edges than from within. The north-east arc of the bank is the clearest section to examine. The most striking feature, the scarp and the ledge above the ravine, is along the southern and south-western sides, where the ground falls away and the functional logic of the whole site becomes apparent. Access to ringforts on private farmland in Limerick generally requires awareness of land ownership, and the surrounding field boundaries suggest this one sits within a working agricultural landscape.