Enclosures of this kind, which appear throughout Ireland as roughly circular or oval earthworks defined by banks, ditches, or stone walls, could serve any number of purposes depending on their age and construction: a ringfort used for settlement, a cattle enclosure, or something with ritual significance. Without more detailed survey information, the one at Ballygommon holds its function quietly, which is itself a not uncommon situation for Mayo, a county whose archaeological landscape has been only partially mapped in depth.

Mayo contains hundreds of such features, many of them poorly documented, their origins ranging from the early medieval period back into prehistory. The county's bogland has preserved some monuments remarkably well while simultaneously obscuring others, and townland names like Ballygommon, derived from Irish place-name traditions, often encode older layers of land use and identity that the visible archaeology only partially illuminates. What the Ballygommon enclosure looked like originally, who built it, and when, remains a matter for future fieldwork rather than settled record.