It sits within one of the more carefully designed demesnes in the west of Ireland, the estate associated with Westport House, yet the enclosure itself predates any such formal planting or improvement, representing an older pattern of human activity on this land.

An enclosure, in archaeological terms, is simply a defined area bounded by an earthwork, a bank, a ditch, or some combination of these, and such features can date from the Neolithic period right through to the early modern era. Their purposes are equally varied, ranging from settlement and livestock management to ritual or funerary use. Without more specific detail on this particular example, it is difficult to say precisely what era or function it belongs to, but its presence within a demesne landscape is itself notable. Demesne improvements from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries frequently altered or obscured earlier earthworks, and the survival of a recorded enclosure here suggests it retained enough visibility to be noted by surveyors.