Earthworks of this kind, a broad category covering everything from ancient enclosures and ringfort banks to field boundaries and ceremonial monuments, are among the most quietly persistent features of the Irish countryside. They endure because they are, at their simplest, shaped earth, and shaped earth is remarkably hard to erase entirely.

Beyond its name and location, the details of this particular earthwork remain largely inaccessible in the public record. What can be said is that Drumbrastle, like many Mayo townlands, sits within a landscape that has been continuously farmed, settled, and modified for thousands of years. Earthworks in this part of Connacht range in date from the Bronze Age through to the early medieval period and beyond, and without further survey information it is not possible to say with confidence which tradition this one belongs to, or what purpose it once served.