What marks it out is not dramatic masonry or a visible earthen bank but a scarp, a subtle change in ground level where the terrain drops away slightly, tracing the outline of a roughly circular space measuring around 27 metres east to west and just under 26 metres north to south. That a human boundary once defined this modest hilltop is clear enough; what it enclosed, and who made use of it, is not recorded.

Enclosures of this general type appear throughout the Irish landscape and can date to almost any period from the prehistoric through to the medieval. They were used as settlement enclosures, as ecclesiastical boundaries, as animal pounds, or as ceremonial spaces, and without excavation it is rarely possible to say which purpose any particular example served. This one at Cloonee is noted as poorly preserved, meaning the scarp that outlines it has been worn down or disturbed over time, leaving only the faintest suggestion of its original form. Its position on elevated ground, commanding a view over the surrounding fields, is consistent with early settlement patterns, where a slight rise offered both visibility and some natural drainage, but that observation takes us only so far.