Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, were typically circular enclosures of earthen banks and ditches built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and used as enclosed farmsteads by rural families. This one sits atop a low rise in pasture ground, a position that would have offered its original inhabitants a modest but useful vantage over the surrounding land.

The records compiled by Denis Power describe the surviving remains in some detail. On the southern side of the field boundary, a semicircular area measuring approximately 39 metres east to west and 22 metres north to south is still enclosed by an earthen bank. The bank stands only about 0.25 metres above the interior ground surface but rises to around 0.9 metres on its outer face, with a fosse, that is, a shallow external ditch, running alongside it. On the northern side of the boundary, the enclosing earthwork has been largely levelled, though a very slight scarped edge and a shallow fosse remain faintly visible from the north-east around to the east. The contrast between the two halves is instructive: one side retains a legible profile, the other has been all but erased by agricultural activity over the years.

For anyone making their way out to Gorteen to look for it, the site sits on private farmland and should be approached with that in mind. The best time to look is late winter or early spring, when low vegetation makes earthworks easier to read across a field. The southern semicircle, with its more intact bank, is the clearer of the two surviving sections, but it is worth pausing at the field boundary itself and looking northward to see how completely the other half has been reduced. The very slight scarped edge noted in the survey records is the kind of feature that rewards a slow, patient look rather than a quick scan from the gate.