What makes it quietly arresting is not its scale but its layering: two banks with a ditch, known as a fosse, running between them, and tucked within the interior, a rectangular hollow roughly nine metres long that may point to something more complex beneath the surface.

The site is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, the most common archaeological monument type in the country. Ringforts were typically enclosed farmsteads of the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1100 AD, and were built in enormous numbers across the island. Most have a single bank and fosse; a double-banked example like this one at Moneyveen suggests a dwelling of some status, since the additional enclosure required considerably more labour and materials. The rath measures 34 metres in diameter and survives in fair condition. The inner bank is clearest on the western and northern sides, while elsewhere the ground simply scarps away to form the boundary. The outer bank, more worn and intermittent, is best preserved to the south. A two-metre gap on the eastern side appears to be the original entrance. The rectangular hollow inside is tentatively identified as a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber commonly associated with ringforts and thought to have served for storage or refuge.