The enclosure at Shangarry is D-shaped, its straight side running roughly north-north-east to south-south-west and measuring around thirty metres, with a width of fourteen metres across the flat edge. What makes it worth a second look is precisely what makes it easy to miss: the defining features are a field boundary, a stream, and a shallow fosse, which is a type of ditch used in early Irish enclosures to demarcate a boundary or provide modest defensive depth. Here the fosse is four metres wide but only about fifteen centimetres deep, meaning centuries of agricultural activity and natural silting have reduced it to little more than a gentle depression in the grass.

The record was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011, placing it within the broader corpus of archaeological field survey work carried out across Munster in recent decades. D-shaped enclosures of this kind are generally associated with early medieval activity in Ireland, though they appear in various forms and periods. The combination of a natural watercourse on one side and a dug fosse on the other is a fairly typical arrangement, using available topography to reduce the labour involved in enclosing a space. Whether the enclosure at Shangarry was a farmstead, a boundary feature, or something with a more ritual or communal purpose is not recorded, and the sparse dimensions are the sum of what the survey was able to confirm on the ground.

The site sits in ordinary pasture, so access depends on the landowner and the condition of the surrounding fields. There are no markers or interpretive signs to guide a visitor, and the fosse is shallow enough that it can disappear entirely in long summer grass. The most useful approach is to study the field boundaries carefully before arriving, since the straight side of the D is defined in part by an existing boundary that may still be visible as a hedgerow or wall. Coming in late autumn or winter, when vegetation is low, gives the best chance of reading the slight changes in ground level that betray the fosse. The stream that forms part of the enclosure's edge may be the clearest landmark once you are standing in the field.