Nobody recorded why it is there. That quiet mystery is typical of these sites, which tend to give up their outlines readily enough but keep their interiors stubbornly ambiguous.

The fort itself is a rath, the most common type of Early Medieval settlement monument in Ireland, built and occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. A rath consists of a roughly circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks, sometimes accompanied by an outer ditch, or fosse, intended to define a farmstead and its immediate territory. The Kippagh example is nearly circular, measuring 35 metres north to south and 34 metres east to west, and its enclosing bank still stands to a height of 1.9 metres. The exterior fosse survives in two sections: a short stretch to the north-west, surviving to a depth of 0.4 metres, and a longer arc running from south-south-east to west, now bounded by a stone-built field fence. The interior is saucer-shaped rather than flat, a common feature of raths that tends to become more pronounced over centuries of weathering and use. At some point, pine trees were planted inside, which gives the interior a closed, slightly removed atmosphere quite different from the surrounding farmland.

The site also has what appears to be a souterrain opening off-centre to the west. Souterrains are narrow underground passages or chambers, typically stone-lined, built during the Early Medieval period for storage and possibly as places of refuge. Their presence within raths is not unusual, though confirming one without excavation is difficult, which is presumably why the word "possible" remains attached to this one. A laneway runs close to the western and north-western arc of the bank, leaving the monument sitting just to its edge, separated from the daily mechanics of the modern farm by not very much at all.