A rath, as this type of ringfort is commonly called, was typically a circular earthen enclosure used as a farmstead or family settlement during the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Most of the country's estimated fifty thousand examples are eroded and easy to walk past without a second glance, and the one at Monablanchameen is no exception.

The enclosure here measures roughly thirty-five metres north to south and thirty-nine metres east to west, defined by a low bank that stands about a metre high on its outer face and somewhat less on the interior. At the flat centre of the enclosure sits a pit measuring four by six metres, and slightly to the south-east of that there is what appears to be a house platform, a shallow rectangular depression about three by five metres, oriented north-west to south-east. A house platform of this kind represents the faint trace of a domestic structure, where the ground was levelled or cut back slightly to create a stable base. The depression is only around twenty centimetres deep, which gives some sense of how gradually these features dissolve back into the landscape. The land slopes gently away to the south and south-west toward the valley floor, and from inside the enclosure there are moderate views along the valley, enough to have made the position a practical one for anyone keeping an eye on livestock or approaching visitors.