Enclosures of this kind are among the most common and most quietly enigmatic features of the Irish countryside. The term covers a broad range of structures, from the circular earthen banks of a ringfort, which would have enclosed a farmstead in the early medieval period, to later field boundaries and ceremonial or defensive ditches whose purposes are harder to pin down. The fact that something has been formally designated as an enclosure tells you that its outline, at least, has survived long enough to be noticed.