This rectangular earthwork, measuring roughly 35 by 25 metres, represents a type of defensive settlement that became common across Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period. The site is defined by a distinctive triple boundary system: an inner scarp about 90 centimetres high topped with a slight grassy ridge, a waterlogged fosse or defensive ditch that’s now densely overgrown with rushes, and a broad outer bank that rises about 1.5 metres from the interior and 45 centimetres from the surrounding landscape. The northwestern side needs no such defences, as the vertical riverbank provides a natural barrier dropping a metre to the water below.

The site’s entrance lies midway along the southeastern side, where a three-metre-wide causeway crosses the fosse, marked by an expanded terminal at the northern end of the outer bank. Inside the enclosure, rushes and irises have taken over most of the space, save for a narrow grassy strip along the riverbank. Two intriguing features project from the inner scarp into the fosse: at the eastern corner, a small two-tiered earthen platform extends about five metres, incorporating what appears to be a stepped design, whilst opposite this projection, the outer bank shows significant stone inclusions in its inner face, suggesting more substantial construction at this point. A smaller, less prominent projection can be found at the southern corner.

Archaeological records from the 2005 Archaeological Inventory of County Sligo note an additional defensive element along the northern half of the southeastern side, where a berm nearly five metres wide separates the outer bank from the fosse. This feature, whilst clearly visible in aerial photographs from the Irish Archaeological Survey Aerial Photography collection, is barely perceptible at ground level today. The fosse here runs parallel to the outer bank before swinging wide at the eastern corner and terminating at the riverbank about 15 metres to the north. Though time and nature have softened its edges, this moated site remains a tangible link to medieval settlement patterns in County Sligo, when such fortified homesteads dotted the Irish landscape.