What makes the group unusual is not any single monument but the clustering itself, nine enclosures of near-identical form gathered in one place, the kind of arrangement that suggests deliberate, repeated use of the landscape over time rather than a single act of construction.

Each enclosure follows the same basic pattern: a circular platform, averaging around six metres in diameter, defined either by a ring of boulders or stones, or by a low bank of peat, with a shallow external fosse, that is, a ditch running around the outside edge. This combination of raised platform and surrounding ditch is a recurring form in the Irish archaeological record, though examples are often found in isolation. Here, grouped together and sharing the same morphology, they are collectively known as the Fionnán enclosures, a name that ties them to the local townland identity of Gowlanes East. Their precise date and function remain unspecified, which is itself a common condition for this class of monument; small enclosures of this kind can belong to a wide range of periods and purposes, from early medieval farmsteads to burial or ritual sites.