These circular enclosures, built during the early medieval period roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries as defended farmsteads for a single family and their livestock, were once so numerous across the Irish countryside that tens of thousands survive in various states. At Kilclogh in County Cork, part of this one does not.

The fort sits on a south-east-facing slope in pasture, its surviving form a circular area of roughly 25.4 metres in diameter. An earthen bank, standing to about 0.85 metres in height, defines the western and northern sides, while a scarp, essentially a sharp natural or cut slope rather than a built-up bank, marks the eastern edge. The south-eastern and southern portions of the enclosure are gone, destroyed by quarrying activity at some point in the past. The quarry itself is now disused and has grown over. P. J. Hartnett, writing in 1939, noted that the original entrance faced north-east, a detail that only adds to the slight melancholy of the site: you can still orient yourself to where people once came and went, even as the ground they enclosed has been eaten away on the opposite side.