Enclosures of this kind are among the most common and least understood features of the Irish countryside. They can range from the remains of a ringfort, a roughly circular earthen bank that once enclosed a farmstead in the early medieval period, to field boundaries, burial grounds, or the traces of much older settlement activity. The name Knappaghmanagh itself carries a suggestion of monastic association, the Irish word "manach" relating to monks, which may or may not have any bearing on what lies here.