The interior remains comparatively open, which gives the place an odd quality: the evidence of habitation is legible from within, but the boundary that once defined and defended it has become nearly impenetrable from the outside.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a type of ringfort, the most common archaeological monument in Ireland. Ringforts were typically enclosed farmsteads, used during the early medieval period, in which a family and their livestock lived within a bank and ditch arrangement that offered both a degree of security and a clear statement of territorial occupation. This particular example sits in the valley of a tributary of the Ballyclogh River, on a west-facing slope overlooked by Knockea Hill to the east. It measures roughly 65 metres on its northwest to southeast axis and 60 metres northeast to southwest, making it a substantial enclosure. The site was recorded on the 1924 Ordnance Survey six-inch map, which depicts the characteristic circular outline with its earthen bank and external fosse, that is, a ditch dug on the outside of the bank to increase the effective height of the barrier. The record was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded to the archaeological inventory in May 2013.

Accessing the earthwork itself is complicated by the scrub vegetation that has overtaken the enclosing bank. The internal area appears to be largely free of overgrowth, so a visitor who finds a way in may be able to read the subtle topography of the interior, the slight rises and hollows that hint at the domestic activity of over a thousand years ago. The wider landscape rewards attention too: the valley of the Ballyclogh tributary is gently pastoral, and the elevated profile of Knockea Hill to the east provides useful orientation when approaching across the fields.