A cashel is a ringfort built from stone rather than earth and timber, its defining feature a drystone wall enclosing a roughly circular interior, and this one measures approximately 41 metres north to south and 35 metres east to west. That the space inside is now cultivated is not, in itself, remarkable; Irish farmers have been pressing ancient enclosures into practical service for centuries. What gives this particular site its odd character is the combination of continued use and slow erasure: the wall is intact enough to be described as fair condition, yet the northeast section has been swallowed by dense overgrowth, and two gaps in the perimeter, at the south and northeast, appear to be modern interventions rather than original entrances.

Cashels of this type are generally associated with the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries, when ringforts served as enclosed farmsteads for individual family units across Ireland. Thousands survive in various states, from near-complete to barely traceable earthworks, and their interiors were originally used for housing livestock, storage, and domestic activity. The one at Na Coitiantaí has not been abandoned so much as repurposed, its ancient boundary wall now doing the work of a kitchen garden enclosure. The two modern gaps suggest the wall has been adapted over time rather than simply left alone, the site absorbing new functions while its original purpose receded from living memory.