The word, used by the early OS surveyors to denote prehistoric or early medieval enclosures of this kind, points to something older than the field banks and hedgerows that now surround it. The enclosure itself is subtle: a subcircular area roughly 30 metres east to west and just under 25 metres north to south, its edge defined by a slight scarp rather than any dramatic earthwork. To the untrained eye it might read as no more than a gentle swelling in the pasture.

Enclosures of this type are generally understood as ringforts, a form of enclosed settlement that was widespread in Ireland during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They typically served as farmsteads, their banks and ditches offering a degree of security for people and livestock rather than any serious military defence. The Annagola example sits at the summit of its drumlin, a smooth elongated hill formed by glacial deposition, which would have made it a naturally prominent and well-drained site. By the time the OS surveyors came through in the 1830s, the enclosure was already a landscape relic, its original bank reduced to the faint scarp that is still visible today. A later field bank cuts across the northern side, truncating the circuit slightly and serving as a reminder that agricultural reorganisation has been quietly editing these features for centuries.