Enclosures of this kind are among the most common yet least understood features of the Irish landscape. The term covers a broad range of structures, from the circular earthen ringforts that once served as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, to later field boundaries and ecclesiastical enclosures whose origins are harder to pin down. What they share is a boundary, a deliberate act of separation between inside and outside, and the question of who drew that line, and why, is usually the interesting one.