That gap is itself telling. Ireland is scattered with such enclosures, earthen or stone-built boundaries that once defined a dwelling, a farmstead, or a ritual space, and many of them resist easy classification even after excavation. The term covers a wide range of forms, from the familiar circular ringfort, a raised platform enclosed by a bank and ditch that served as a defended homestead through the early medieval period, to more irregular enclosures whose purpose or date remains genuinely unclear.