The term earthwork covers a broad range of human-made features, from the raised banks of ancient field boundaries to the ditched enclosures of early medieval settlements, and without further detail it is difficult to say precisely what form this one takes. That ambiguity is itself part of the story.

Teerleheen is a small rural townland in Clare, a county whose limestone geology and long settlement history have left the ground dense with archaeological traces. Many of Clare's earthworks are the remnants of ring forts, known in Irish as raths or lios, which served as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Others are the boundaries of pre-Norman field systems, or the eroded profiles of mounds whose original purpose has long since become unclear. Without specific recorded detail for this particular site, it belongs for now to that category of monuments that are known to exist, are considered significant enough to have been recorded, and yet remain quietly undescribed in any publicly accessible form.