The structure is a cashel, a type of ringfort built from stone rather than earthen banks, and this one has been worn down over centuries to the point where its enclosing wall reads less as a monument and more as an inconvenient obstacle that successive generations of farmers quietly incorporated into their field boundaries.

Ringforts of this kind are typically associated with early medieval settlement in Ireland, roughly the sixth to tenth centuries, functioning as enclosed farmsteads where a family and their livestock might be protected. The cashel at Dowra has an internal diameter of around 28 metres, which gives a reasonable sense of the enclosed space that would once have existed within its walls. It was recorded as 'Fort' on the Ordnance Survey maps of both 1836 and 1876, which tells us it was still recognisable as a discrete feature at those dates, even if already diminished. Since then, the northeast section of the original perimeter has been lost entirely, replaced by a more substantial modern stone field wall. The original entrance, wherever it once opened, is no longer identifiable.