Five-stone circles are a distinct monument type found predominantly in south-west Ireland, characterised by two portal stones flanking an entrance, two flanking stones, and a single recumbent axial stone lying flat opposite the entrance. Here, the northern entrance stone has gone, leaving four orthostats still in place, each roughly 0.7 to 0.8 metres long and between 0.6 and 0.8 metres high. The internal diameter along the main axis, which runs east to west, is just about 2.3 metres, making this a modest example of the type even by the compact standards of Cork's five-stone circles.

The east-west alignment is not incidental. Five-stone circles are generally thought to have been constructed during the Bronze Age, and their axial stones are frequently oriented towards significant solar or lunar rising and setting points. Seán Ó Nualláin, who catalogued many of these monuments across Cork and Kerry during the 1980s, recorded this circle as number 61 in his 1984 survey, placing it within the broader tradition of recumbent stone circles concentrated in Munster. What gives the site an additional layer of interest is the presence, roughly 90 metres to the north-east, of a separate and apparently anomalous group of standing stones. Whether these were erected in relation to the circle, or represent a distinct episode of monument-building, is not known, but their proximity makes Gort Na Tiobratan part of a small, loosely clustered prehistoric landscape rather than an isolated curiosity.

The boggy, hilltop setting means the ground can be soft underfoot in wetter months, and the stones themselves are modest in scale, easily missed without careful navigation. The anomalous standing stones to the north-east are worth seeking out separately once the circle has been located.