What makes it quietly compelling is not just its survival but the particular way in which later activity has pressed in on it from almost every direction, leaving the monument to negotiate between the ancient and the utilitarian.

The site is a rath, the most common type of Irish ringfort, typically a defended farmstead of the early medieval period, enclosed by one or more earthen banks thrown up from an internal ditch called a fosse. This example measures roughly 34.6 metres east to west and 32.2 metres north to south, making it a reasonably substantial subcircular enclosure. Two banks survive with a fosse between them, and a gap on the eastern side may represent the original entrance. The townland boundary cuts across the inner bank from the east around through the south to the west-southwest, and quarrying has eaten into the monument from the west through to the north-northwest. Despite all of this, the earthwork remains well-preserved. In the interior, in the north-western quadrant, a linear depression running roughly north-northeast to south-southwest hints at something below ground. It is about eleven metres long, up to 2.2 metres wide, and sunk as much as 0.85 metres, and it is filled with nettles, which tend to thrive in disturbed or nutrient-rich ground. The depression is thought to indicate a possible souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber that was often used in early medieval Ireland for storage or concealment, and which frequently survives only as a surface hollow once the roof has partially collapsed.

The nettles, in a way, are the most readable feature on the ground. They mark the line of something that was once deliberately buried and may still be substantially intact beneath.