Enclosures of this kind are among the most common, and most quietly ambiguous, monument types in the Irish landscape. The term covers a wide range of features, from ringforts, which were enclosed farmsteads of the early medieval period, to ceremonial or burial sites of much earlier prehistoric origin. What they share is a boundary, usually earthen or stone-built, that once separated an interior space from the world outside, though the reasons for that separation varied enormously across time and across communities.