The mound measures only about two metres across, modest enough to overlook entirely, yet it marks what may be the most quietly compelling feature of a site that already has more structural complexity than most.

The rath at Kilpaddoge is bivallate, meaning it was defended not by a single enclosing bank and ditch but by two concentric rings of earthworks. Most ringforts, the circular enclosed farmsteads that number in the tens of thousands across Ireland and date broadly from the early medieval period, made do with one. Here, an oval interior roughly 26 metres north to south and 39 metres east to west is surrounded by a well-defined inner bank and fosse (the ditch cut to provide material for the bank), with a second, outer bank beyond that, now barely distinguishable at ground level. The inner bank is more substantial, rising between 0.4 and 1.7 metres above its fosse and averaging 1.1 metres above the enclosed interior. A gap of around five metres to the south-east marks the original entrance. The site was recorded and described in Catherine Toal's North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995 by Brandon Press in association with FÁS.