The trees press in on every side, but this gap in the canopy is no accident; it marks the outline of a rath, an early medieval ringfort, sitting quietly at the crest of a north-facing drumlin slope. Drumlins are the low, smooth, egg-shaped hills that ripple across much of Ulster and the northern midlands, left behind by retreating glaciers, and early settlers understood their value well. A position at the crown of one offered both drainage and a clear view of the surrounding land.

The rath itself is defined by a steep-sided earthen bank, between 2.7 and 3.1 metres wide, which still stands 1.5 to 1.8 metres high on its outer face. Inside, it encloses an area roughly 19 to 21 metres across, which would once have contained a farmstead, most likely of the early medieval period when ringforts were a common form of enclosed settlement across Ireland. Outside the bank runs a fosse, the technical term for the accompanying ditch, here around 3 metres wide at the top and 0.8 metres deep. Together, bank and fosse would have presented a meaningful obstacle to livestock straying in or out, and possibly to less welcome visitors. A causeway and entrance on the south-western side have been modernised at some point, widened to about 2.8 metres, which hints at continued practical use of the enclosure even in relatively recent times. Michael J. Moore documented the site in the Archaeological Inventory of County Leitrim, published in 2003, providing the measurements that allow its form to be understood without digging a single sod.