It is the kind of monument that appears on archaeological registers as a category and a grid reference, and little else, leaving the site itself to speak without much assistance from the written record.

Enclosures of this type are among the most common and least understood features of the Irish countryside. The term covers a broad range of structures, from the circular earthen banks of a ringfort, which would have enclosed a farmstead during the early medieval period, to later field boundaries and ceremonial or defensive enclosures of various dates. Without further detail, it is difficult to say which tradition the Ballyroe example belongs to, or how much of it survives above ground. Kerry is a county with an exceptionally dense concentration of early medieval settlement remains, and an enclosure in this part of Munster could plausibly date anywhere from the Bronze Age to the post-medieval period. The townland name itself, Ballyroe, derives from the Irish Baile Rua, meaning red townland or settlement, a name that points to long habitation but offers no particular clue about what lies within its boundaries.