Enclosures of this kind are among the most common and most quietly enigmatic features of the Irish countryside. The term covers a broad range of structures, from prehistoric ringforts and cashels to later agricultural enclosures, all sharing the basic principle of a defined boundary, whether built from earth, stone, or a combination of both, set apart from the surrounding land for reasons that were once clear to those who made them.

Carrowgarve is a townland in Mayo, a county whose landscape is dense with such features, many of them still unexcavated and understood only in outline. Without further detail on this particular site, what can be said is that its existence as a recorded monument places it within a long tradition of enclosed settlement and land use that stretches back, in some cases, more than two thousand years. The word "carrow" in Irish place names derives from the Irish "ceathrú", meaning a quarter division of land, suggesting that this area was once understood in terms of agricultural or territorial subdivision, which may or may not bear any direct relationship to the enclosure itself.