The earlier structure is a cashel, a type of ringfort built from stone rather than the earthen banks more common elsewhere in Ireland, and what remains of it has been largely reduced to a spread of collapsed rubble. That rubble is now partly buried beneath, and obscured by, a later irregular enclosure of roughly 28 metres in internal diameter, which today contains a small plantation of trees. The ancient wall does not disappear entirely, though. A single course of its outer face can be traced along most of the eastern side, and two courses survive at the southern end where the old wall merges into its modern successor, running roughly 2.2 to 4 metres beyond it.

Measurements taken by the Co. Kerry Field Club in 1946 recorded a wall thickness of around 4 metres, which would have made this a reasonably substantial cashel. More recent assessment suggests the figure is closer to 2.5 metres, based on a couple of possible inner facing stones identified just inside the modern wall. The discrepancy has not been resolved, and may reflect the degree to which the original fabric has shifted and spread over the intervening decades. Inside the enclosure, an oval depression in the north-western corner attracted the Field Club's attention and was interpreted at the time as the remains of a hut-site. It measures 3.3 metres by 1.4 metres and is outlined by drystone walling that is now largely defaced. The alternative reading is that it represents a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber of the kind commonly associated with early medieval ringforts, used variously for storage, refuge, or ventilation. A section of intact walling forming a rounded angle survives at the north-eastern corner, and a low stony bank marks the southern perimeter, though this curves away from the main feature at the south-eastern corner in a way that has not been fully explained. The site was documented in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, and the question of what lies beneath that oval depression remains, for now, open.