Enclosures of this kind are among the most common yet least understood features of the Irish countryside. They can date from the Bronze Age through to the early medieval period, and may represent anything from a fortified farmstead to a ceremonial or burial site. Their defining feature is a boundary, usually a raised earthen bank or a stone wall, that sets a space apart from the land around it.

The townland name offers a small clue to its character. Derrygarve Beg derives from the Irish, likely incorporating "doire", meaning an oak wood, suggesting the area was once wooded ground, the kind of terrain in which early settlement often took root. Mayo itself is densely layered with prehistoric and early medieval remains, a county where ringforts, cashels, and enclosures appear with regularity in the fields and bogs. Without further detail on this particular site, the enclosure at Derrygarve Beg remains one of those quietly present features of the Irish landscape, recorded, mapped, and waiting for closer attention.