The land here is fairly level to the north but drops away sharply towards a stream on the southeastern side, creating a naturally defensive position. When the Ordnance Survey mapped this area in 1839, their cartographers recorded a distinctive subrectangular enclosure measuring approximately 42 metres from northeast to southwest and 30 metres from northwest to southeast, with the structure notably tapering towards its northeastern end. The surveyors marked it with hachured lines, their standard notation for earthworks, and noted that marshy, rough pasture surrounded the site to the north and west.

Today, agricultural improvement has erased most physical evidence of this monument from the landscape. The land that once held marshy ground has been drained and brought into cultivation, and the enclosure itself has been levelled, leaving only subtle hints of its former presence. The southwestern side offers the sole surviving clue; here, an irregular field boundary still follows what appears to be the original line of the enclosure, tracing the path of a stream that likely once fed water into the defensive moat. This stream would have been the logical water source for such a feature, a common arrangement in medieval moated sites throughout Ireland.

The proximity of another possible moated site just 290 metres to the southwest suggests this area may have been more densely occupied during the medieval period than the modern landscape indicates. These moated sites, typically dating from the 13th to 15th centuries, were often constructed by Anglo-Norman settlers or prosperous Gaelic families as fortified farmsteads. While the physical monument at Rossaneny has largely vanished, its ghostly outline on that 1839 map serves as a reminder of the layers of history that lie beneath Ireland’s agricultural landscape, waiting to be recognised by those who know where to look.