What survives is a roughly defined enclosure measuring about 25 metres east to west and 16 metres north to south, bounded by an earthen bank that manages a modest height of around 0.4 metres to the north before tapering away to a low scarp on the southern side. There is no visible fosse, the defensive ditch that typically accompanies such enclosures, and no identifiable original entrance, which makes this one of those sites that raises more questions than it resolves.

This kind of enclosure is known as a rath, the earthen equivalent of the stone-built cashel, and both types represent the enclosed farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, broadly dating from around the fifth to the twelfth centuries. They were domestic rather than military structures, protecting livestock and household from wolves and opportunistic raiding rather than armies. What makes the Cashelaveela example quietly notable is its company: another rath lies roughly 130 metres to the south-west, and a third sits around 200 metres to the south-east, suggesting that this particular stretch of the Glenfarne valley once supported a cluster of neighbouring farmsteads, their occupants presumably sharing the same marginal, rocky ground on the mountain's lower slopes. Such groupings are not unheard of, but finding three in close proximity on terrain this unforgiving does invite speculation about how they related to one another, whether as kin, as rivals, or simply as neighbours working the same difficult landscape.