Enclosures of this kind are among the most common monument types in the Irish landscape, and among the least understood. They range from ring-forts, known in Irish as raths or lisses, which served as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, to prehistoric ceremonial sites and later field boundaries. Without more detailed survey information, the Brosna enclosure sits quietly in the official record, noted and mapped but not yet fully described.

Brosna itself sits in a part of Kerry that tends to be overlooked in favour of the more dramatic coastal scenery to the south and west. The north Kerry plain, stretching toward the Shannon estuary, has a long history of agricultural settlement, and enclosures dot the townlands throughout the region. Many were built during the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1000 AD, when the enclosed farmstead was the dominant unit of rural life in Ireland. Others may be considerably older. Without excavation or detailed field survey, it is rarely possible to say with confidence which category a given example belongs to, and the Brosna site is no exception.