What looks at first like a slight rise in the pasture is, on closer inspection, a carefully proportioned enclosure: roughly 31.5 metres north to south and 33.5 metres east to west, surrounded by a bank that drops a modest 30 centimetres on the inside but stands over two metres tall when measured from the bottom of the ditch outside. That outer ditch, known as a fosse, is still waterlogged, which tells you something about why the site was positioned here and how its original builders thought about defence and drainage in the same breath.

This is a rath, the Irish term for a ringfort, a class of monument built predominantly between the sixth and tenth centuries and once so common across Ireland that tens of thousands survive in various states of preservation. They functioned as enclosed farmsteads, the bank and fosse marking the boundary of a family's domestic space rather than a military fortification in any formal sense. The Cloonlara example sits in level pasture and retains the basic form well enough that its proportions can still be measured with some confidence. The record was compiled by Denis Power and uploaded in August 2011, forming part of the broader survey work that brought many such sites into the archaeological record.

The north-east section of the bank has a gap some 15 metres wide, a breach that has been gradually enlarged by cattle moving in and out of the interior over what is presumably a long period of agricultural use. The interior itself is level but rough and marshy underfoot, so appropriate footwear is advisable. Because the site sits in working farmland, access would require the landowner's permission, and the ground conditions mean a drier spell in late spring or summer will make a visit considerably more comfortable. The most instructive thing to look for is the relationship between the outer fosse and the bank: standing at the edge of the ditch and looking up at the exterior face of the earthwork, the two-metre height becomes legible in a way that a plan or description cannot quite convey.