What was once a univallate enclosure, meaning a roughly circular settlement boundary defined by a single earthen bank, has been levelled. All that remains is a five-metre-wide band of bare earth scattered with stones, describing a circle about eighteen metres across. A possible entrance survives on the eastern side. The site is, in one sense, gone. In another, it is still legible.

The enclosure appeared on Ordnance Survey maps before its removal, which places it firmly within the tradition of ringfort-type settlements common across early medieval Ireland. These univallate enclosures typically served as farmsteads or homesteads, the bank providing a boundary more symbolic and practical than truly defensive. What makes Gortacurraun more interesting than most demolished examples is that a souterrain was discovered here in the years following the survey carried out by J. Cuppage for the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of 1986. A souterrain is an underground stone-lined passage or chamber, often associated with ringfort settlements and thought to have served for storage, refuge, or both. The souterrain came to light through local knowledge rather than formal excavation, which suggests that the destruction of the surface enclosure may not have reached everything beneath.