Enclosures of this kind are among the most common monument types in Ireland, yet also among the most varied: the term can refer to anything from a ringfort, a roughly circular earthwork that once enclosed a farmstead in the early medieval period, to a more ancient ritual or funerary boundary. Without further detail, the specific character of this one remains open, which is itself a curious condition for a place that has clearly been deemed significant enough to classify.

Knockanush is a Kerry townland, and Kerry as a county holds one of the densest concentrations of archaeological monuments in Ireland, a consequence of both its long settlement history and the relative preservation afforded by its more marginal agricultural land. Enclosures in this region range from the well-documented to the barely-noticed, some surviving as clear earthen banks and ditches, others reduced to a faint crop mark or a slight rise in a field. This particular site belongs, for now, to the category of the documented-but-undescribed, a placeholder in the broader map of the Irish past.