Enclosures are among the most common and least understood features of the Irish countryside, ranging from early medieval ringforts, which were defended farmsteads enclosed by earthen banks and ditches, to later stock enclosures, ceremonial boundaries, or the remnants of settled communities whose precise origins are difficult to pin down without excavation or detailed survey work. The Cool Lodge example is one of many such sites across Mayo that have been recorded and protected without their full story yet being told.