It sits on the crest of a north-facing slope, and in ordinary conditions there is little to indicate that anything of significance lies beneath the surface. Yet when the field is ploughed, the circular form becomes clearly apparent to anyone who knows to look for it, and from the air the site reveals itself more fully still, appearing as a cropmark of its fosse, the encircling ditch that once defined the boundary of the settlement.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when defined primarily by earthen banks and ditches rather than stone, were the dominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth century. They served as enclosed farmsteads, the surrounding bank and fosse providing a degree of protection for livestock and family alike. The Skenakilla example follows the classic roughly circular plan, and the cropmark evidence suggests the fosse survives as a buried feature, its slightly different soil conditions causing the vegetation above it to grow in a way that photographs from altitude make legible. This kind of aerial visibility is often the only way such sites are properly appreciated, particularly where later farming has reduced the upstanding earthworks to little more than a gentle swell in the ground.