Unlike the larger, more famous stone circles of the region, five-stone circles are compact, almost intimate arrangements, typically consisting of two portal stones, two flanking stones, and a recumbent stone lying flat between them. The Cousane circle sits on a low knoll at the western end of the Cousane Gap, close to the head of the Owngar river, and it has come down to us complete, all five stones still in their original positions.

The stones themselves range from 1.1 metres to 2.7 metres in length, and the internal measurement along the monument's main axis runs to just 3.15 metres, making this a tight, carefully arranged space rather than a ceremonial arena. That axis is aligned east to west, a orientation common to many Cork-Kerry stone circles and one that has long prompted discussion about astronomical or seasonal significance. Roughly 160 metres to the southwest, a pair of standing stones once formed a separate but presumably related monument, suggesting this corner of the Cousane Gap was not a single isolated gesture in the landscape but something more considered and cumulative. Scholarly attention to the site includes work by Seán Ó Nualláin in 1984 and by Roberts in 1988, both of whom catalogued it as part of the broader tradition of Bronze Age ceremonial monuments across the region.