A rath, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a roughly circular earthen enclosure, common across early medieval Ireland, typically associated with a single farmstead and its inhabitants. That a structure of this kind should occupy the interior of one is not unusual in itself; what gives this site a particular quality is the layering of occupation it implies, with at least two separate buildings identifiable within the same enclosure.

The building in the northern half measures approximately twelve metres by five, dimensions first noted by Knox in 1911, who recorded it as running to thirty-nine feet by seventeen. When the site was revisited in 1990 and subsequently published by Lavelle in 1994, those foundations were described as sod-covered stone walling, still coherent enough to define the outline of the structure. A second building occupies the western half of the rath, and this one carries an additional detail that sharpens the interest considerably: it encloses the entrance to a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber of the kind typically cut from stone or dug into the earth, which served in early medieval Ireland variously for storage, refuge, or both. The combination of a surface dwelling positioned to control access to a subterranean feature suggests a deliberate arrangement, though the date of neither structure has been firmly established.