According to a contemporary poem, William Boy O’Kelly welcomed poets here at Gallagh during Christmas 1351, continuing the Irish tradition of aristocratic patronage of the arts. The enclosure where this festive gathering likely took place still marks the landscape today, though centuries of growth have softened its defensive features.

The site forms an almost circular area measuring roughly 50 metres north to south and 43 metres east to west, with the lake shore naturally protecting its western, eastern and southern flanks. What remains of the original defensive bank can still be traced, particularly on the western side where it stands nearly half a metre high on the inside and two metres on the outside, complete with facing stones still visible through the vegetation. The builders didn’t stop at a single line of defence; they dug an outer fosse, or defensive ditch, that measures 10 metres across at the top and narrows to just over 3 metres at its base, reaching a depth of one metre.

A curious feature of this ringwork is its double-ditch system on the landward side. Beyond a 13-metre wide strip of level ground called a berm, a second fosse runs from the west-southwest to west-northwest, though this outer ditch is shallower at only 30 centimetres deep and 5 metres wide. Access to the enclosure was controlled through a 4.5-metre wide causeway that crosses the inner fosse on the western approach, allowing visitors and defenders alike to enter the fortified space. Within the interior stands a later addition; a tower house that represents the evolution of defensive architecture in medieval Ireland, when tall stone towers began to replace or supplement earlier earthwork fortifications.