The interior has been entirely swallowed by dense scrub growth, which gives the whole structure a quality of deliberate concealment, as though the land itself has decided to reclaim what was once carved out of it.

This is a cashel, the term used for a ringfort built from stone rather than earthen banks and ditches. Ringforts were the dominant settlement type in early medieval Ireland, broadly from around the fifth to the twelfth century, serving as farmsteads enclosed for the protection of people and livestock. The cashel form is particularly common in the stonier landscapes of Munster, where field walls, enclosures, and dwellings were routinely constructed from whatever material lay immediately underfoot. The Clonomara example retains walls some 1.5 metres thick, which speaks to the care originally taken in their construction, even if the north-western stretch has since collapsed. What once formed a complete circuit now survives only in parts, the missing sections merging gradually into the surrounding ground.