This rectangular earthwork measures 35.5 metres from north to south and 31.5 metres from east to west, encompassed by an earthen bank that rises about a metre high on its interior side. Around this bank runs an external fosse, or defensive ditch, roughly two metres deep; though now waterlogged and partially filled in with centuries of accumulated sediment. The main entrance faces south-southwest, providing access to what would have been the protected interior space.

The site’s defensive features may be more complex than they initially appear. A field boundary standing 1.3 metres high runs immediately outside the western and northern banks, possibly incorporating remnants of a second defensive bank. When archaeologist P.J. Hartnett examined the site in 1939, he noted intriguing evidence suggesting the fortification once had double defences on all sides. The alternating zones of wet and dry soils to the east and south, he proposed, indicate where a second bank and fosse once stood, creating a formidable double-ringed defence system.

These moated sites, typically dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, were often constructed by Anglo-Norman settlers as fortified farmsteads. The waterlogged fosse would have served multiple purposes; providing defence, drainage for the raised interior platform, and possibly even as a source of fish. Today, this quiet corner of Cork preserves one of Ireland’s many earthwork monuments, its grassy banks and water-filled ditches marking where medieval settlers once sought security in an often turbulent landscape.