This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common type of early medieval enclosure found across Ireland. Most were farmsteads, home to a single family and their animals, surrounded by an earthen bank and sometimes a ditch. At Tormore, the raised area measures roughly 42 metres north to south and 22 metres east to west, enclosed by an earthen scarp that varies considerably in height, between 0.4 and 1.7 metres at its exterior face.

What gives this particular example a quiet logic worth pausing over is how its builders adapted their work to the terrain. Because the site sits on a south-facing slope, the scarp on the southeast to southwest side has been built up noticeably higher than elsewhere, compensating for the natural fall of the ground and maintaining a consistent enclosed platform within. There is no fosse, or external ditch, visible at ground level, which sets it apart from ringforts where the dug-out material was piled to form the bank. At Tormore, it appears the enclosure was formed primarily by scarping into the slope rather than by digging and banking. One section of the eastern edge has been altered over time, straightened off by a north-to-south track that now runs along that side of the site. Despite this intrusion, the original entrance can still be identified: a gap about 2.5 metres wide in the scarped edge, complete with a ramp sloping down to the exterior.