Enclosures of this kind, essentially defined areas bounded by stone walls or earthen banks, appear throughout Ireland in contexts ranging from the early medieval period to much later agricultural use, and disentangling their original purpose from centuries of reuse is rarely straightforward. On an island as exposed and sparsely settled as Beginish, the presence of any deliberate boundary-making raises questions about who was here, and why they thought it worth the effort to mark out and enclose a piece of ground.

Beginish has previous form as an archaeologically interesting place. Excavations on the island during the twentieth century uncovered evidence of early medieval occupation, including metalworking debris and structural remains, suggesting it once supported a small but active community rather than serving merely as seasonal grazing. The enclosure recorded here is catalogued in O'Sullivan and Sheehan's archaeological inventory of south-west Kerry, published in 1996, which remains the principal survey of the region's field monuments. The island sits within an area of Kerry that was, during the early medieval period, densely settled along the coast and on its offshore islands, with communities making use of both land and sea in ways that left a scattered but legible record across the landscape.