Enclosures of this type are among the most common yet least understood monuments in Ireland. They range in date from the prehistoric through to the early medieval period, and in form from earthen ringforts to more irregular enclosed settlements. Without excavation or detailed survey, it is often impossible to say which category a particular example belongs to, or what life, if any, it once contained.

Knockanush itself is a placename with Irish roots, and Kerry is a county with an extraordinarily dense concentration of early field monuments, many of them still unexamined in any systematic way. The landscape here was occupied continuously across millennia, and enclosures like this one were the basic unit of rural settlement for much of that time. A ringfort, or rath, was typically a circular area enclosed by one or more earthen banks and ditches, serving as a farmstead and place of shelter. Whether this particular site fits that description, or represents something older or more irregular, is not something the available record currently makes clear.