This ancient earthwork consists of a nearly complete circular earthen bank, though time and perhaps human activity have claimed a section in the northeast. The surrounding swampy terrain may well have swallowed any evidence of a defensive ditch, or fosse, that typically accompanied such structures, leaving archaeologists to wonder about the site’s original defensive capabilities.

The ringfort’s location seems deliberately chosen despite, or perhaps because of, its challenging setting. Positioned on low, waterlogged ground with higher land rising to both north and south, it would have offered its inhabitants a strategic vantage point whilst the marshy surroundings provided natural protection. Against the northern section of the interior bank sits a curious mound of earth and stone, though this is likely a more recent addition rather than an original feature of the medieval structure.

These ringforts, known locally as raths, were the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around 500 to 1200 AD. They served as enclosed homesteads for farming families, offering protection for both people and livestock. The Tullyhorky example, recorded in the Archaeological Survey of County Donegal in 1983, represents one of thousands of such sites scattered across the Irish landscape, each a testament to the rural settlement patterns that dominated Ireland for centuries before the arrival of the Normans.