Locally it has long been called the Demesne Fort, a name recorded as far back as 1914, and it belongs to a category of monument that is extraordinarily common across Ireland yet still carries a certain peculiarity when you encounter one up close. This particular example is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, which was typically a circular or roughly circular enclosure defined by earthen banks and ditches, used during the early medieval period as a farmstead or the defended residence of a local family of some standing.

What remains here is modest but legible. The rath is subcircular in plan, measuring roughly 40 metres north to south and 36 metres east to west, and it is defined by a scarp, an intervening fosse (that is, a ditch), and an outer bank. The overall form has deteriorated over time, and the site is described as poorly preserved, yet the basic geometry of the enclosure is still readable in the landscape. A possible entrance survives at the south-east, which is a fairly common orientation for ringfort entrances. What gives the Ballintava example an added layer of interest is that a second ringfort lies approximately 170 metres to the north-east, suggesting this corner of north Galway once supported a small cluster of early medieval settlement, with two separate enclosed farmsteads in relatively close proximity to one another.