There are no walls, no tower, no dramatic elevation. What survives at Shrough is subtler: a roughly circular earthwork, about nineteen metres north to south and twenty metres east to west, pressing only marginally above the surrounding ground. The bank that defines it reaches less than a metre in external height at its best-preserved arc, from the north-west around to the north-east. A fosse, the shallow ditch that once reinforced the enclosure's boundary, runs along the south and east, and faint traces of a possible outer bank survive on the eastern side. A gap roughly two metres wide at the south-south-east may mark the original entrance. Taken together, these modest features are what remain of a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type in the Irish landscape.

Ringforts were built primarily during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, and functioned as enclosed farmsteads for single family groups. The earthen bank and fosse provided a degree of security for livestock and a clear statement of territory, though the enclosures were rarely military in any serious sense. At Shrough the dimensions are on the smaller side, and the relatively slight height of the surviving bank suggests either that the original construction was modest or, more likely, that centuries of agricultural improvement have gradually reduced what was once more prominent. The surrounding pasture, described as improved land on generally level ground, has almost certainly been ploughed or heavily grazed over the generations, conditions that erode earthworks slowly but surely. A preservation order under the National Monuments Acts, numbered PO 6/1976, now protects what remains.