A rath is a ringfort, typically an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, defined by one or more earthen banks. Here, the enclosing element is a scarp, a roughly shaped escarpment rather than a built-up bank, cutting an oval approximately 35.5 metres north to south and 25.5 metres east to west out of gently rolling ground. On the western side the drop is almost vertical, between 1.7 and 1.8 metres, and the face has been reinforced with drystone walling at some point. To the south-west, about 50 metres off, sits a natural basin of wetter ground, the kind of low-lying damp hollow that would have been a practical consideration for anyone choosing where to settle.

What makes the site quietly compelling is the evidence of a souterrain in the northern half of the interior. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage, common on Irish ringfort sites and thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. At Killaturly it has not been excavated or formally opened; its presence is known only because the ground above it has partially given way, leaving three adjacent areas of collapse visible at the surface. The scarp itself tells a layered story of reuse: on the southern side it has been absorbed into a later field wall running northwest to southeast, while to the north-west remnants of a field fence follow the curve of the outer slope closely, suggesting that whoever built those later boundaries recognised the old earthwork and worked around it rather than through it. The eastern side has slumped considerably, spreading into a broad low slope roughly seven metres wide. There is also a small circular depression in the southern interior, about 1.2 metres across and half a metre deep, whose purpose remains uncertain.