The ringfort at Lisnagoneeny carries that tradition alongside its more measurable qualities: a roughly circular enclosure nearly forty metres across, its interior sitting noticeably higher than the surrounding land, ringed by a bank of earth and stone that rises almost three metres above the outer ditch. That ditch, wide and U-shaped, is itself cut a metre below the level of the adjacent ground, giving the whole structure a pronounced, tiered presence in the landscape. On the interior, within the north-western sector, sits a small oblong mound, roughly 1.8 metres square and 0.6 metres high, with a quantity of exposed stonework around it whose purpose is not recorded.

A ringfort, or rath, is the most common type of early medieval settlement monument in Ireland, typically the enclosed farmstead of a single family or household, defended by one or more earthen banks. This example is univallate, meaning it has a single enclosing bank rather than two or three, and dates in type to the period broadly spanning the early centuries of the first millennium AD through to around 1000 AD, though no specific excavation date is recorded here. The story of underground passages belongs to a well-established category of local belief attached to such sites across Ireland. These reputed passages, known in the archaeological record as souterrains, are stone-lined or rock-cut tunnels associated with ringforts and thought to have served as storage chambers or places of refuge. Whether an actual souterrain exists at Lisnagoneeny has not been confirmed in the available record, but the oral tradition itself is of some interest, suggesting the site has retained a presence in local consciousness long after its original function was forgotten. The views from the enclosure, particularly to the east, south, and south-west, hint at why this elevated position was chosen in the first place.