This is a rath, the most common type of ringfort found across Ireland, typically a circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and a fosse, which is the ditch between them, originally built during the early medieval period as a defended farmstead. At around 26 metres in diameter, this one is a modest example, but its survival in any form after centuries of agricultural use is noteworthy in itself.

The earthwork was recorded as early as 1914, when Neary documented it as entry number 127 in a survey of the area. At that time the structure retained enough definition to be described clearly, and it still presents two banks with an intervening fosse. The inner bank survives best along the south-western and western and northern arc of the circuit. Along the northern to north-eastern stretch, however, the outer bank has been lost entirely, absorbed into or obscured by a field boundary that runs directly against the monument. This kind of incremental erosion is common where ringforts meet working farmland; field banks are practical things, and over generations they tend to swallow the edges of older earthworks. What remains is partly a proper bank, partly a scarp, which is a natural or artificial slope that takes over where the built-up bank has been reduced or removed.