Of what may have been eleven standing stones, only four remain upright or leaning; the other seven lie displaced across the ground. The circle is modest in scale, its main axis running northeast to southwest across roughly 7.7 metres, with a possible entrance stone at the northeast end and a fallen axial stone at the southwest. That deliberate orientation is characteristic of Cork's multiple-stone circles, where the axis and the axial stone opposite the entrance were almost certainly tied to astronomical or ritual significance, though precisely how remains a matter of debate.

What makes Kealagowlane particularly interesting is not the circle alone but the concentration of prehistoric activity immediately surrounding it. Tucked off-centre to the north, inside the circle itself, is a boulder-burial, a form of monument in which a large capstone rests directly on the ground or on small supporting stones, typically covering a burial deposit. Just to the south runs a relict field boundary, a remnant of an ancient agricultural landscape that was once worked and divided. Within 120 metres to the northwest, the site is neighboured by a cairn, two burnt mounds, and a fulacht fia. A fulacht fia is a type of ancient cooking or industrial site, identified by a characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound of heat-shattered stone, usually found near water and associated with boiling large quantities of liquid. The clustering of all these features around a single monument suggests this terrace was not simply a place of ceremony but a worked, inhabited, and organised part of the prehistoric landscape for a considerable period.

The circle sits on the slopes above Bantry Bay, and the southward outlook across the water would have been as present to its builders as it is to anyone who visits now. The relict field boundary running immediately south of the stones is easy to overlook, but worth pausing over; it is a reminder that the circle did not stand in open wilderness but was part of a farmed and managed territory.