These enclosures, known in Irish as raths, were the basic unit of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a raised circular area defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches. They were farmsteads rather than fortresses, home to a family and their livestock, and tens of thousands of them survive across the country in varying states of preservation. The one at Moyglass More is among the lesser-documented examples, which itself says something about the sheer density of such monuments in the Irish countryside.

Clare is particularly well supplied with ringforts, a reflection of the county's settled agricultural character during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. The townland name Moyglass, derived from the Irish for a green or grey plain, suggests open, workable ground, exactly the kind of terrain where a farming family of middling status would have chosen to build. The rath would have enclosed a house or houses, perhaps a souterrain for storage or refuge, and been surrounded by fields that have long since been absorbed into the wider landscape. Without more detailed survey information in circulation, the specifics of this particular enclosure, its dimensions, the number of its enclosing banks, its current condition, remain uncertain from the available record.