What makes it quietly remarkable is the logic of its construction: the cliff itself does the work on one side, while a carefully engineered sequence of earthworks defends the landward approach. It is the kind of site that rewards knowing what you are looking at, because from the outside there is almost nothing to see.

The fort occupies a level, D-shaped platform, roughly 20 metres east to west and just 6 metres north to south, with the straight cliff-edge forming its northern boundary. On the landward side, the enclosure is defined by a fosse, a defensive ditch, running east to west, approximately 3 metres wide and 0.6 metres deep. Beyond the fosse sits a flat-topped bank, standing 1.1 metres on its interior face and 1.6 metres on the exterior, and some 6 metres wide at the top. Past the bank, a berm of roughly 4 metres separates it from a steeply scarped edge, that is, a deliberately cut and near-vertical slope, standing 3.1 metres high and 6 metres wide. At the foot of this scarp the ground becomes waterlogged, which would have added a further natural obstacle to any approach. The layering of ditch, bank, berm, and scarp suggests deliberate and considered design, even if the period of construction is not recorded in the available survey notes, which were compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011.

Accessing the site means coming to grips with the overgrowth, which, as of the survey, covered the entire area and made the interior effectively impassable. The estuary-facing cliff edge provides the clearest orientation point. The waterlogged ground at the base of the outer scarp is worth noting if approaching from the lower ground, particularly after wet weather, which in this part of Limerick is not infrequent. The earthworks themselves, though obscured, are substantial enough that the bank and outer scarp can still be traced from the edges of the vegetation, giving a sense of the original defensive sequence even when the interior remains inaccessible.