It was recorded on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map, which places its origins firmly in the nineteenth century as a cartographic fact, even if the structure itself may be considerably older. Today, the ground where it once stood is crossed by a series of north-to-south cultivation ridges, the kind of lazy-bed pattern associated with potato farming, and these have effectively erased whatever earthwork remained.

Circular enclosures of this type are common across Ireland and often represent the remains of a ringfort, a form of enclosed farmstead used from the early medieval period through to around the twelfth century. They served as domestic settlements, their banks and ditches providing a degree of enclosure for livestock and household activity rather than any serious military defence. What makes the Ankail example quietly interesting is the combination of its hilltop position, which the Ordnance Survey cartographers noted afforded excellent views in all directions, and its complete disappearance beneath later agricultural activity. A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, compiling their archaeological survey of south Kerry for Cork University Press in 1996, recorded the site but confirmed there was no visible trace remaining on the ground.

The cultivation ridges that replaced it tell their own story. Such ridge systems were often intensified during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as populations expanded and marginal land was pressed into use. That a hilltop enclosure, however modest, was ploughed over and turned to tillage suggests the pressure on land in this part of Kerry was considerable. The site survives now only as a map reference and a question about what, exactly, was enclosed on that low hill, and why.