The site measures approximately 44 metres north to south and 42 metres east to west, dimensions that place it well within the range of a typical early medieval rath. A rath is an enclosed farmstead, usually of earth and timber construction, built by a farming family of middling or higher social standing in Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Tens of thousands were built across the island; the majority have been ploughed out, built over, or otherwise erased, which is precisely what makes one in fair condition worth noting.

The earthwork at Dangan Oughter retains its defining bank and the fosse, or ditch, that would originally have run between the bank and an outer enclosure. Traces of that outer bank survive at the north and south-west, hinting that this was once a multivallate rath, a type generally associated with higher-status occupants in early medieval Irish society, where multiple concentric banks and ditches signalled rank as much as they offered defence. A gap on the east side may represent the original entrance, east-facing openings being common in Irish ringforts and thought by some scholars to carry a practical or symbolic preference for the sunrise. The condition of the site is described as fair, meaning the earthworks are still legible but showing some deterioration, a state familiar to anyone who has walked Irish fields where centuries of grazing and seasonal weather work slowly against earthen monuments.