The one at Gortatlea, in County Kerry, is a rath, the term used for a ringfort constructed from an earthen bank rather than stone, typically enclosing a circular area that once contained a farmstead or family settlement. These structures were built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and served as the basic unit of rural life for the Gaelic farming class. The earthen banks offered some protection for livestock and household, but their more important function was likely social, marking out territory and signalling status within a community.

Gortatlea itself sits in north Kerry, in the broad lowland country between Tralee and Castleisland, an area that saw continuous settlement from prehistoric times through to the medieval period. The ringfort here would have been part of a wider agricultural landscape, its inhabitants farming the surrounding land and participating in the local túath, the small territorial kingdom that formed the basic political unit of early medieval Ireland. The specific history of this particular rath, who built it, when it was occupied, and what remains visible at ground level, is not currently detailed in the available record, which means it sits in a condition common to many rural monuments: present in the landscape, logged by surveyors, but not yet fully documented in the public domain.