The earthen bank is barely half a metre high on the inside but rises to nearly one and two-thirds metres when measured from the outer ditch, giving the enclosure a presence that only becomes apparent once you are standing beside it rather than looking across it from the road.

This is a rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland, typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly the sixth to the twelfth centuries. Ringforts served as enclosed farmsteads, the earthen bank and accompanying fosse, which is simply a ditch dug to reinforce the bank, defining the boundary of a household's living and working space. The Ballintubbrid example sits in level pasture and measures roughly 32 metres north to south and just over 33 metres east to west, making it a fairly typical specimen in terms of scale. The record, compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011, notes a possible original entrance where the bank drops away on the west-north-west to west side, and identifies several gaps of between two and two and a half metres in the bank at the east, south-east, south, and north-west. Whether these represent later breaches or earlier features is not stated, but the field boundary running north to south along the outer edge of the fosse on the west side suggests the rath has been gradually absorbed into the working landscape over the centuries.

The interior is described as level and clear of the dense overgrowth that smothers the bank itself, though it is waterlogged at the centre, so firm footwear is advisable. The enclosing bank is thickly grown with trees and bushes, which makes the circuit of it slightly awkward but also preserves the earthwork from the worst of agricultural disturbance. An aerial photograph taken in October 2002 as part of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland records the site from above, and gives a clearer sense of the full circular outline than is easy to appreciate on the ground.