Whoever controlled that neck controlled everything beyond it. A promontory fort is, at its most basic, a defensive enclosure that exploits exactly this geography, using one or more earthen banks and ditches cut across the landward approach to turn the headland into a naturally fortified enclosure. The sea cliffs do the rest of the work. These sites are found all around the Irish coast and are generally associated with the Iron Age, though some continued in use well into the early medieval period.

The Cloghane example sits quietly in its townland in County Cork, one of a large number of coastal promontory forts that punctuate the southern and western seaboards. Cork alone has dozens of them, some well-documented and heavily visited, others known only as a set of eroded earthworks on a cliff edge. Beyond its location and its type, the specific history of this particular fort, its builders, any finds associated with it, and the current condition of its banks and ditches, remains to be fully documented in the public record.