The one at Cloonlaheen, in County Clare, is a quiet example of a monument type that shaped rural Ireland for centuries, a rath being a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built primarily as a defended farmstead during the period roughly spanning the fifth to twelfth centuries. At their peak, these structures were the basic unit of settled life for farming families across the island.

Clare is particularly rich in such remains, its limestone terrain and relatively low levels of intensive tillage having preserved earthworks that elsewhere were long since ploughed flat. Raths in this part of Connacht and Munster frequently survive as low, grassy banks enclosing a circular interior where the family dwelling, outbuildings, and livestock would once have been kept. The placename Cloonlaheen derives from the Irish, with "cluain" generally indicating a meadow or pasture, which fits neatly with the agricultural character these sites were built to protect and organise. Without more detailed recorded information available for this specific monument, the finer points of its dimensions, condition, or any associated finds remain uncertain.