Cashels, the stone-walled equivalent of the more familiar earthen ringfort, were farmsteads of the early medieval period, their drystone perimeter walls enclosing a household and its associated buildings. This one, on the limestone terrain of Funshin Beg in County Galway, sits among reclaimed grassland and rock outcrop, its roughly subrectangular shape measuring around 33.6 metres north to south and 30.5 metres east to west. It is not enormous, but it is unusually busy inside.

The outer wall survives in fair condition, though later farming activity has left its mark in characteristic ways. A field wall was built directly on top of the cashel wall along the western and northern sides, and field-clearance stone, the accumulated debris of generations of farmers moving rock off cultivable ground, has been piled against it at the north-east and south. The entrance gap on the south-east side remains well defined, at 2.3 metres wide, which is a fairly typical width for a cashel doorway. Inside, the picture is unexpectedly detailed. Two possible house sites are positioned against the cashel wall at the north and south, and two further structures occupy the south-west quadrant, one rectangular at roughly 8.6 by 4.5 metres, the other closer to square at around 5 by 5 metres. Internal divisions are also visible across the interior, suggesting the space was organised into separate functional areas rather than left as open ground. Towards the south-south-east, traces of what may be a limekiln survive; a limekiln was used to burn limestone and produce quicklime, which was spread on fields to improve soil quality, hinting at agricultural activity associated with the site at some point in its history.

The density of structures within a single cashel of this size is notable. Most such enclosures yield one or two internal features; this one appears to preserve the outlines of a small, self-contained settlement, its various phases of use layered on top of one another and now visible only as low stone traces among the grass and outcrop.