These circular enclosures, typically bounded by one or more earthen banks and ditches, were the standard unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, home to farmers and their families from roughly the fifth century through to the twelfth. Tens of thousands once existed across the country; several thousand survive in recognisable form. This one carries its location name, Doonmore, which derives from the Irish "dún mór", meaning large fort, a hint that the site may have held some local significance, though the name could equally reflect a later folk memory of something that once looked more substantial than it does today.

Ringforts of this type, known as a rath when constructed primarily from earthworks rather than stone, functioned as enclosed farmsteads rather than military fortifications in any modern sense. The bank and ditch combination provided security against animal theft and perhaps a degree of social signalling, marking a household's territory and status. Clare is particularly well supplied with such monuments, given the county's mix of limestone lowland and upland terrain that preserved earthworks which might elsewhere have been ploughed away. Doonmore itself sits in a part of Clare where the underlying landscape has retained much of its older character, though without more detailed survey information it is difficult to say precisely how intact the banks remain or whether any internal features such as souterrains, underground stone-lined passages sometimes associated with ringforts, are present here.