Cultivation ridges of this kind, sometimes called lazy beds, were a widespread method of tilling wet or marginal land, mounding soil into long raised strips to improve drainage and increase the depth of workable earth. That this particular field system survives at all, within what appears to be a defined and bounded space, gives it a certain archaeological weight.

The enclosure is flanked on both banks by mature trees, whose root systems and canopy have, in all likelihood, helped preserve the earthworks beneath them from more intensive disturbance. The site lies on the Iveragh Peninsula, that long arm of southwest Kerry reaching out into the Atlantic, which has yielded an unusually dense concentration of early and medieval remains. The cultivation ridges at Islandboy were recorded as part of a systematic archaeological survey of South Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, a volume that remains a significant reference for the archaeology of this region.