They sit dispersed across a stretch of ground roughly 200 metres long, each one a small circular platform averaging about six metres in diameter, ringed by boulders, loose stones, or a low bank of peat. Each also has a shallow external fosse, the term for a ditch or depression cut around the outside of an earthwork, which gives the structures a faint but legible definition even now.

These nine features are collectively known as the Fionnán enclosures, named for the townland context in which they appear. Their consistency is notable: despite being spread across open ground, they are remarkably uniform in size and construction, suggesting they were built to a common purpose or perhaps within the same period, though the notes do not specify when. Small enclosures of this kind, defined by rings of stone or earthen banks, occur across Ireland in various forms and from various periods. They might have served as animal pens, as boundaries around dwelling platforms, or as ceremonial spaces, and without excavation it is rarely possible to say with confidence which function applied. What is unusual here is the concentration: nine examples of near-identical morphology clustered together in a single area is a pattern that sets Gowlanes apart from more isolated examples found elsewhere.