This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common monument type surviving in the Irish countryside. Ringforts were enclosed farmsteads, typically from the early medieval period, where a family and their livestock sheltered within a raised earthen bank. Thousands once dotted the island; many have been ploughed flat or built over, so even a worn example retaining its basic form carries some significance.

The Atticoffey enclosure is subcircular rather than perfectly round, measuring roughly 31.5 metres north to south and 28 metres east to west. It sits on a ridge, a position that would have offered both visibility across the surrounding terrain and a degree of natural defence. What defines it now is a denuded bank, reduced over time by weathering, grazing, and the slow encroachment of trees whose roots have further disturbed the earthwork. That tree line, running along what remains of the bank, is one of the more distinctive features of the site today, giving a wooded outline to what would originally have been an open earthen boundary. The condition is described as fair, which in archaeological terms means enough survives to understand the form, though the original height and profile of the bank have been considerably reduced.