What makes it worth a second look is the layering visible in the stonework itself: the low, tumbled base of the original cashel wall, a type of ringfort built from dry-stone construction rather than earthen banks, has at some point been topped by a more recent stone wall, bringing the structure to a height of 1.6 metres and a thickness of around a metre. The result is a single feature that contains two very different moments in time, one prehistoric or early medieval, one far more recent and practical.

Cashels, as dry-stone ringforts are known in Irish archaeology, were typically built during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as enclosed farmsteads for farming families of various social ranks. The circular enclosure at Caherbaroul measures 23 metres in diameter, a modest but functional size consistent with a single household and its ancillary activities. At some later date, a farmer or landowner appears to have recognised the usefulness of the old wall as a foundation and built directly on top of it, raising a fresh course of stone for the more immediate purpose of containing livestock. The original archaeology survived beneath, but the later addition has become part of the structure\'s character rather than simply obscuring it.