It is on one such headland near Kilbaha that an ancient promontory fort clings to the cliff edge, a site that belongs to one of Ireland's most enduring classes of prehistoric and early medieval monument. A promontory fort uses the natural geography of a headland to do much of the defensive work, with the sea guarding three sides and a constructed bank or ditch cutting off the landward approach. The result is an enclosure that required far less labour than a fully surrounded ringfort, while offering a commanding position over the water.

Kilbaha sits near the very end of Loop Head, a peninsula that narrows to a finger of land pointing out into the Atlantic between the Shannon Estuary to the south and Galway Bay to the north. The area is geologically ancient, its flagstone and shale coastline shaped by the same Carboniferous sediments that define much of County Clare. Promontory forts of this coastal type are found at intervals all along Ireland's western seaboard, and they tend to cluster where the land meets the sea in these sharply defined headland formations. Their date of construction varies widely, with some examples belonging to the late Bronze Age and others to the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Without more specific excavation or survey data for this particular site, its precise origins remain open.

The landscape around Kilbaha is quiet and exposed, with the Loop Head Lighthouse marking the peninsula's end a short distance beyond the village. The fort's position on the coast means that the earthworks, if visible, are best approached on foot and in fair weather, as the clifftop ground in this part of Clare can be uneven and the Atlantic wind a serious consideration.