It is neither. The raised area, roughly 24 metres across, is what remains of a rath, the earthen equivalent of a ringfort, once enclosed by a bank of earth and stone that still survives to a height of about two metres on its eastern side, though it has been considerably reduced elsewhere over the centuries.

Raths were the most common form of enclosed settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from somewhere between the sixth and twelfth centuries, and were used by farming families as much for enclosing livestock as for defence. This particular example sits without a fosse, the surrounding ditch that normally accompanies such banks, which either was never dug or has been lost to the slow levelling of agricultural use. The original entrance is no longer readable in the earthwork at all. What does survive, or may survive, is something less obvious: a linear depression running through the north-western quadrant of the interior has been identified as a possible collapsed souterrain, an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, that served early medieval settlements as a place of storage or refuge. The souterrain has its own separate record, suggesting the feature was considered significant enough to warrant individual attention even in its ruined state.