Ringforts, known in Irish as raths or lios depending on local tradition, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. They were not military fortifications in any serious sense, but enclosed farmsteads, the bank and ditch keeping livestock in and wolves or opportunistic neighbours out. Thousands survive across the country in varying states of preservation, some reduced to a faint crop mark visible only from the air, others still bearing substantial earthen banks.

Glendonnell itself is a small townland in Kilkenny, a county with a dense and layered archaeological landscape stretching back through the Norman period and well into prehistory. Ringforts in this part of Leinster tend to survive in field corners and on slightly elevated ground, occasionally preserved by a mixture of superstition and agricultural inconvenience. A widespread folk belief held that disturbing a rath brought bad luck, and that tradition kept many from the plough long after their original inhabitants were forgotten. Whether the Glendonnell example retains its banks in good condition, has been reduced by centuries of farming, or survives mainly as an earthwork visible through vegetation, is not currently documented in any accessible public record.