A rath, sometimes called a ringfort, is an enclosed farmstead, typically defined by one or more earthen banks with a ditch, or fosse, between them, designed as much for the management of livestock as for any military purpose. Here, two banks and an intervening fosse still define the enclosure clearly, which is relatively uncommon; many such sites across Ireland have been reduced to a single eroded bank, or ploughed away entirely.

The monument has not escaped entirely unscathed. The eastern side shows evidence of quarrying, the kind of small-scale extraction of stone or material that has damaged countless earthworks across the country over the centuries, particularly when a rath's banks offered a convenient ready source. Despite this, the entrance gap and its associated causeway at the south-east survive in well-defined condition, the causeway being the raised passage that would once have allowed people and animals to cross the fosse cleanly. The site overlooks marshy terrain to the west and north, a positioning that would have offered both a degree of natural protection and a reliable water source nearby. Roughly 300 metres to the north-west lies a possible lake dwelling, or crannog, a type of artificial or partially artificial island used as a settlement during various periods of Irish prehistory and the early medieval era. The proximity of the two sites raises quiet questions about the community or communities that once occupied this corner of Connacht, and how they organised themselves across the landscape between the higher ground and the water.