Enclosures of this kind are among the most common yet least understood monument types in Ireland. The term covers a broad range of structures, from early medieval ringforts, which were domestic farmsteads defined by earthen banks and ditches, to later ecclesiastical enclosures that once bounded a church or burial ground. Without further detail, it is difficult to say with confidence which category this one belongs to, or what period it dates from.

Clooncannon is a small rural townland, and like many such places in east Galway, the land has been farmed continuously for centuries, meaning that earthworks of this kind can survive in varying states of preservation, sometimes as a clear raised bank visible from the road, sometimes as little more than a cropmark or a slight unevenness in a field. The fact that it has been recorded at all points to some surviving physical trace, though how legible that trace remains on the ground is an open question. Galway's interior has a particular density of these unassuming earthwork monuments, many of them still unnamed in local tradition and passing unremarked by anyone who does not know what to look for.