At Cotterellsbooly, that is essentially what survives: a roughly circular enclosure approximately 44 metres in overall diameter, its outline softened by the trees that have colonised both its perimeter and its interior over the centuries.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or lios depending on regional tradition, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from around the sixth to the twelfth century. They served as enclosed farmsteads, the surrounding bank and ditch offering protection for a family and their livestock rather than any serious military defence. The one at Cotterellsbooly was already old enough to be mapped when the Ordnance Survey carried out its first six-inch survey of Ireland in 1839, meaning the enclosure was a recognised feature of the landscape at least by that date. By the time a revised map was produced in 1948, the site was still legible as a roughly circular form, its dimensions recorded and its presence confirmed across more than a century of cartographic attention. The placename Cotterellsbooly is itself quietly interesting, the element "booley" deriving from the Irish buaile, a seasonally used pasture or milking place, suggesting the area had a long association with cattle-keeping that may well predate the Ordnance Survey by many centuries.