That layering of one domestic life over another, separated by considerable centuries, is what makes Carrigillihy quietly remarkable.

The site was excavated by M. J. O'Kelly in 1954, and his findings gave the enclosure a coherent shape and a probable age. The outer bank, oval in plan and measuring approximately 24 metres north to south and just over 21 metres east to west, survives to a maximum height of 1.2 metres and a width of nearly 2.7 metres. What makes its construction unusual is the western half of the bank, where low upright slabs are set radially, like spokes, at regular intervals of roughly 0.6 to 0.9 metres, a technique that would have lent the bank structural stability. The enclosure's entrance faces east, and the oval house inside, measuring about 10 metres by 6.7 metres, shares that same orientation. O'Kelly attributed both the enclosure and the house to the Early Bronze Age, placing the original occupation somewhere in the broad span between roughly 2500 and 1500 BC. Beneath or rather within this picture, excavation also revealed the foundations of a later square house built directly over the oval one, a superimposition that compresses two distinct periods of settlement into a single patch of West Cork pasture.

The site sits in farmland on the western fringe of Glandore Harbour, and the enclosure's low stone bank is visible in the field, though the internal house outlines are more a matter of knowing where to look than of obvious surface drama. The radially set slabs in the western bank are the detail most worth seeking out once you have your bearings.