Enclosures of this kind are among the most common yet least understood features of the Irish countryside. The term covers a wide range of structures, from ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads typically dating from the early medieval period, to later pastoral boundaries, ritual sites, and defensive works. Without more specific detail, the category is a holding place as much as a description, a way of acknowledging that something deliberate was made here, even if precisely what, and by whom, and when, remains unresolved.