These circular enclosures, known in Irish as raths, were the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, typically consisting of a raised earthen bank and external ditch enclosing a domestic space where a family and their livestock would have lived and worked. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, yet each occupies a specific patch of ground chosen deliberately, usually for drainage, visibility, or proximity to workable land.

Scardan Beg itself is a small townland in Sligo, and beyond its location little documented detail about this particular site is currently available in the public record. What can be said is that the rath as a monument type belongs broadly to the period between the sixth and twelfth centuries, though many were constructed on sites with earlier histories. They range from modest single-banked enclosures to more elaborate multivallate examples with two or three concentric rings of earthworks, the latter often associated with higher-status occupants. Without further excavation or survey data attached to this specific site, its scale, condition, and precise layout remain difficult to characterise with any confidence.