It is a modest thing by any measure, its estimated original diameter just 2.7 metres along its main axis, and yet it belongs to a distinctive tradition of prehistoric monument building that is particularly concentrated in the Cork and Kerry region. Of the seven stones that probably once formed the ring, only five remain upright.

This type of monument is known as a multiple-stone circle, a form found across the south-west of Ireland and generally associated with the Bronze Age. What survives at Oughtihery includes both the axial stone, which typically sits at the lowest and most southerly point of such circles and is thought to have held astronomical or ritual significance, and the north entrance stone, which together suggest the circle once had a clear orientation. The main axis runs roughly ENE to WSW. The surviving orthostats, the term for the upright slabs that form the ring itself, range from around 0.78 to 0.95 metres in height, and between 0.7 and 1.7 metres in length, giving the circle a low, understated profile. The scholar S. O Nualláin catalogued this site in 1984 as part of a broader survey of Cork stone circles, placing it in a wider pattern of such monuments distributed across the region's river valleys and upland fringes.

The setting in open pasture near a river's headwaters is itself worth noting. Many of Cork's smaller stone circles occupy similar transitional ground, neither fully upland nor lowland, often close to water. The Delehinagh River is a minor watercourse, but its upper reaches would have made this spot meaningful in a landscape where water sources frequently drew prehistoric activity. The two missing stones leave the circle open to interpretation, and whether they were removed for building material, fell and were buried, or were never completed remains unclear.