The term enclosure covers a broad range of prehistoric and early medieval features, from the circular earthen banks of a ringfort, which once served as a defended farmstead, to more enigmatic boundary works whose original purpose remains debated. What makes this one quietly interesting is precisely that ambiguity: it has been recorded, assigned its place in the archaeological register, and then left largely to its surroundings.

Doonass itself is a place already associated with something dramatic. The name derives from the Irish "Dún Easa", meaning the fort of the waterfall, a reference to the falls on the River Shannon nearby, which were once among the most impressive on the entire river before the construction of the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme in the 1920s altered the flow so dramatically that the falls were reduced to a shadow of what they had been. Whether the enclosure at Doonass has any relationship to that older "dún", or fort, for which the area was named is not recorded, but the possibility is not an idle one. Enclosures in Clare frequently mark early settlement, territorial boundaries, or places of local significance that predate the written record by centuries.