A rath is an early medieval farmstead enclosure, typically a roughly circular area defined by an earthen bank and ditch, within which a family and their animals would have lived. The Tullig example, set on a steep north-west-facing slope and put to tillage, measured around 35 metres in diameter according to the second edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1897 to 1898, which recorded it as a circular enclosure with a clear bank.

The site did not survive agricultural pressure. The enclosure was partially levelled in the early 1960s, and whatever remained was cleared in the early 1980s, leaving only a low rise along the south-western arc to hint at the original line of the bank. More intriguing is what the landowner reported about the interior: steps that once led down to two subterranean chambers in the north-western quadrant. This detail points strongly to the former presence of a souterrain, an underground stone-built passage or series of chambers that were commonly dug beneath ringforts in early medieval Ireland, probably for food storage and possibly for refuge. Whether those chambers remain intact beneath the ploughsoil or were destroyed along with the bank above them is not recorded.