The water in question is not the sea but a turlough, one of the distinctive seasonal lakes of the Burren and wider karst landscapes of western Ireland, which fill and empty through underground fissures in the rock rather than by normal surface drainage. When the water retreats, it leaves behind the enclosure sitting on bare karst, its grassed-over wall only faintly legible against the grey stone.

The enclosure is roughly circular, about fourteen metres in diameter, and defined by a low wall that has largely been absorbed into the ground surface over time. It sits within the Carran depression, a broad hollow in the Burren karst that contains one of Ireland's larger and better-known turloughs. The enclosure's purpose is not recorded, though circular enclosures of this general kind are a common feature of the Irish countryside, ranging from early medieval farmsteads to earlier prehistoric settlements. What makes this particular example quietly unusual is its position, placed on a rise just sufficient to keep it above the seasonal floodwater, which suggests whoever built it understood the rhythms of the landscape well enough to site their structure accordingly.