This is a univallate rath, meaning a ringfort defined by a single enclosing bank and ditch rather than the multiple concentric rings that mark more elaborate examples. Thousands of such sites survive across Ireland, most of them dating from the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1000 AD, when they served as enclosed farmsteads for farming families of middling status. That so many endure at all is partly a matter of folk belief, partly the awkward geometry they impose on ploughing, and partly simple luck.

The Guhard example measures roughly 27.5 metres from north to south and 24 metres from east to west across its interior, dimensions that are fairly typical for a site of this kind. The enclosing bank rises to about 1.5 metres on its outer face, though from inside the enclosed area it stands only half a metre proud of the ground, giving a clearer sense of how the ditch, or fosse, did much of the real work of definition and modest defence. That fosse is around 2 metres wide and sits approximately 0.4 metres below the level of the surrounding land; it remains visible along the western, southern, and eastern arcs of the circuit. The southern and eastern sides of the site are further defined by field banks, which now form part of the broader boundary system of the field in which the rath sits.