The one at Garraun in County Clare is a rath, the term used for a ringfort constructed primarily of earthworks, typically a raised circular bank enclosing a domestic space, sometimes reinforced with a ditch. In early medieval Ireland, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, these were the farmsteads of free landowners and their households, places of daily life rather than military strongholds, though the enclosing bank would have offered some protection for livestock against both raiders and wolves.

Clare is particularly dense with such survivals, its landscape shaped by centuries of pastoral farming that left earthworks undisturbed where tillage elsewhere might have levelled them. The placename Garraun, from the Irish "garrán", generally refers to a shrubbery or small grove, suggesting the kind of low, scrubby vegetation that would have characterised this part of the county. Beyond its classification as a rath and its location in Garraun townland, the documentary record for this particular site is thin, and little else can be said with confidence about its dimensions, condition, or any finds associated with it.