Someone, at some point, blocked it with a stone wall. Whether that blocking came centuries after the original construction or is simply a later farmer's practical measure is not known, but the gap itself is thought to be ancient, a possible original entrance into a settlement that functioned here during the early medieval period.

Ringforts, known in Irish as raths when built primarily of earth, were the standard farmstead enclosure across Ireland roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. Thousands survive in varying states of preservation. This example at Carrigfadda sits on a north-northeast-facing slope in pasture, presenting as a circular, slightly raised area measuring 24 metres north to south and 22 metres east to west. An earthen bank, still standing to a height of 1.4 metres, defines the enclosure, and a shallow external fosse, essentially a ditch dug to provide the material for the bank, traces its outer edge. The whole arrangement is modest in scale but structurally legible, the kind of site that reads clearly once you know what you are looking at.