The rath at Cloonaderavally sits at the north-western edge of a north-to-south ridge, and whoever chose the location knew exactly what they were doing. A rath is a ringfort, the most common type of early Irish settlement monument, typically consisting of a raised circular platform enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches. This one measures about fifty metres across and makes intelligent use of the natural terrain, so that the earthwork reads as far more imposing than the labour invested in it might suggest.

The bank itself is not uniform. On the southern side it is roughly four metres wide and rises about 1.2 metres above the external ground level, but on the northern side it broadens to nearly eight metres and climbs to three metres on the outside face. That asymmetry is largely explained by the ridge. On the western to northern arc, the ground already falls away sharply, and the builders exploited this natural slope to amplify the visual and defensive effect of the bank without having to pile up extra material. A fosse, which is a defensive ditch dug at the foot of the bank, runs around the north-north-western to north-eastern section, roughly 5.5 metres wide and 3 metres across at the base. On the opposite side, where the hillside drops steeply away, the fosse gives way to a sloping terrace instead. A gap of about three metres in the bank on the east-south-eastern side is the likely position of the original entrance. Two details caught during survey add quiet texture to the site: a basal portion of dry-stone walling, just 0.6 metres high, is still visible at the outer face of the bank on the northern side, hinting at a revetment or structural facing that once reinforced the earthwork. And in exposed sections of the bank, fragments of animal bone are visible, the kind of domestic debris that accumulates around a working farmstead over generations, and that occasionally survives in the body of the bank itself when sections erode or are cut.