The ridge runs roughly east-north-east to west-south-west, and the rath, a type of ringfort consisting of an enclosed circular area defined by a raised bank and ditch, occupies the middle high point with a quiet purposefulness. The enclosure measures approximately 25 metres in diameter, its interior now a grass-covered platform. The defining bank has been worn down considerably over the centuries, surviving most visibly as a scarp on the southern side, still standing to around 1.6 metres in height. Faint traces of an external fosse, the defensive ditch that would originally have reinforced the bank, can be detected at the west-north-west.

Ringforts of this kind were the predominant form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically enclosing a farmstead and its associated structures. Most were built and occupied between roughly the sixth and twelfth centuries, though their use varied considerably by region and circumstance. The Lisalea example is modest in scale and much reduced by time and agricultural activity. Notably, an outer bank was still recorded during survey work carried out in the 1940s, suggesting that features now lost or barely traceable were more legible within living memory. The original entrance has not been identified, which is not unusual for sites that have undergone centuries of ploughing and field reorganisation. A field bank running north-east to south-west sits just to the north-west of the rath, representing a later landscape boundary that has accumulated alongside, and perhaps partly obscured, the earlier monument.