Roughly fifteen metres across, it leaves no impression on the grass that a walker would notice underfoot. The only record of its shape comes from an aerial photograph taken in 1973, in which the enclosure resolves itself into a clear ring, visible from altitude but effectively erased at ground level.

The Paps of Dana are twin rounded hills in County Kerry, named for the goddess Danu of Irish mythology, their profile long associated with the landscape of early Irish sacred geography. Circular enclosures of this kind, sometimes called ringforts, were among the most common settlement forms in early medieval Ireland, typically serving as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or small community. The earthen banks and ditches that defined them have survived in varying states across the country, though many have been ploughed out, built over, or simply worn down to the point of invisibility. This one at Gortacareen occupies that last category. It persists in the record because aerial photography, which picks up crop marks and soil differences that no surface inspection would catch, happened to pass over it in the right light and season. Without that 1973 photograph, there would be nothing to note here at all.