The rath at Knockatoura measures some 84 metres in diameter, making it a substantial example of its type. A rath is a roughly circular enclosure, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, used during the early medieval period in Ireland as a farmstead or enclosed settlement. At this site, two banks of earth and stone survive, separated by an intervening fosse, which is the ditch cut between them. The inner bank can be traced from the south-west around through north to north-north-east, while the outer bank and fosse remain visible from south-west to north-west. What that means in practice is that only a portion of the original circuit is still legible; the rest has been cut away or obscured.

The reasons for that partial survival are not hard to find. A number of field boundaries have been driven directly through the monument at various points, as generations of agricultural use reorganised the land without particular regard for what lay underneath. More significantly, a quarry has encroached upon the eastern side, removing a section of the earthwork altogether. A note in Neary's 1914 survey of the area first recorded the site, and it has been associated with a nearby feature catalogued separately. The combination of field divisions and quarrying is not unusual for Irish raths, many of which were gradually absorbed into the working landscape over centuries, their original function long forgotten or simply outweighed by practical necessity.