The landscape here creates a natural defensive advantage, with ground falling away to both east and west whilst rising gently towards the south. This strategic placement would have offered excellent views across the surrounding countryside whilst providing a naturally defensible position for whatever structure once stood here.

The site consists of a rectangular enclosure measuring approximately 38 metres from north to south and 43 metres from east to west. These boundaries are marked by a low earthen bank, roughly 3.5 metres wide, which still rises about 40 centimetres above the interior ground level and stands approximately one metre high when viewed from outside. Running alongside the exterior of this bank on the southern, western, and northern sides is a fosse, or defensive ditch, measuring about 4 metres across and 1.5 metres deep. This combination of bank and ditch would have formed a formidable barrier in medieval times.

Moated sites like this one at Carrigeen were typically constructed during the Anglo-Norman period in Ireland, often serving as fortified farmsteads for colonising families or as administrative centres for managing agricultural estates. The rectangular layout and substantial earthworks suggest this was likely a significant settlement, possibly housing a manor house or similar structure within its protective boundaries. Though time has reduced the banks and partially filled the ditches, the site remains a well-preserved example of medieval defensive architecture in the Irish landscape.