These features, sometimes easy to mistake for a natural rise in the ground, were once a common way of fixing the edges of landholdings, parishes, or territories. Built up from soil and sometimes stone, they served as visible, physical agreements about where one place ended and another began. That such markers needed to be constructed at all says something about how seriously people took the matter of borders, and how much could hinge on a few feet of ground.

The place-name Boleyneendorrish offers a small clue to the character of the area. The Irish word "buaile" typically refers to a summer pasture, a place where cattle were brought to graze during the warmer months in the seasonal movement of animals known as transhumance. The second element likely relates to a door or gate, suggesting this was a named point of passage into or out of that grazing ground. A boundary mound in such a landscape would have had practical work to do, helping to define where one family's or community's grazing rights ended. Whether this particular mound belongs to the early medieval period, the post-medieval era, or somewhere in between is not currently established in the available record.