This is a cashel, a type of ringfort built from stone rather than earthen banks, and what survives at Garrane is compact but legible. The enclosing wall, roughly 1.4 metres high and 2 metres thick, runs around a circular area about 28 metres across. Where the natural slope of the land allowed, the builders cut into the hillside to create a scarped edge; where it did not, they built the wall up instead. The result is a defended interior that sits raised on its southern side before the field drops away beneath it.

Inside the south-western quadrant, the foundations of two rectangular hut sites are still visible. One is relatively modest, measuring approximately 2.5 by 6 metres; the other is more substantial, at roughly 7 by 7.2 metres. Cashels of this kind are generally associated with the early medieval period in Ireland, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, when enclosed farmsteads of this type were the dominant form of rural settlement across the country. The stone construction is typical of areas where good building material was close to hand, and the combination of a scarped natural slope with a built stone wall reflects the pragmatic approach to enclosure that characterises so many of these sites. The two hut foundations suggest a small but organised domestic space, with the larger structure possibly serving as the main dwelling and the smaller one as an outbuilding or store.