A cashel is a ringfort built from stone rather than earthen banks, the term used most commonly in the west and south of the country where limestone and other building stone lay ready to hand. These structures were typically farmsteads, the enclosed homesteads of a single family or small community, and they date broadly to the period between the fifth and twelfth centuries, though many continued in use or were adapted long after.

The specific history of this particular enclosure at Gortnahoula remains, for now, largely unrecorded in any publicly accessible form. What can be said is that the townland name itself carries interest: Gortnahoula derives from the Irish, with "gort" meaning a field or tilled land, pointing to a landscape shaped by agricultural use across many centuries. The presence of a cashel within such a townland is consistent with the broader pattern of early medieval settlement in Connacht, where stone-built enclosures were used to define and defend the domestic space of farming households, their livestock, and whatever small wealth they held.

Without further documented detail about this site, much about its dimensions, condition, and immediate setting remains to be established from the ground itself. Sligo's countryside conceals a considerable number of such monuments, some well preserved, others reduced to little more than a scatter of stones or a faint circular rise in a field. A cashel in this region would typically be found on slightly elevated or well-drained ground, and the surrounding landscape often retains traces of the ridge-and-furrow cultivation or field boundaries that once worked alongside these enclosures. Visitors exploring the area should treat any such monument with care, as disturbance of archaeological sites is protected under Irish law.