The name Ballaghafadda derives from the Irish Bealach Fada, meaning the long road or long pass, which suggests a place that people have been moving through or pausing at for a very long time. Earthworks as a category cover a wide range of features, from the enclosing banks of a ringfort to the remnants of field systems, ceremonial enclosures, or burial mounds, and without more detail it is difficult to say precisely what form this one takes. What can be said is that something deliberate was done here, that somebody at some point moved earth with a purpose, and that the land still carries the mark of it.