Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, with tens of thousands scattered across the country. They are the remains of enclosed farmsteads, typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly 500 to 1000 AD, and were built by encircling a dwelling and its outbuildings with one or more earthen banks and ditches. The fact that so many survive at all, even as low grassy banks, is a result of a deep-seated folk reluctance to disturb them, tied to beliefs about fairy mounds and the consequences of interfering with such places.

Ballymakegoge is a small rural townland in Kerry, and like many of its neighbours it carries within its boundaries the physical trace of a farming family who lived there well over a thousand years ago. The circular or oval enclosure of a rath would have sheltered a timber house, perhaps a souterrain (an underground stone-lined passage used for storage or refuge), and the daily life of an extended family group. In a county as densely settled in the early medieval period as Kerry, such sites are not unusual in themselves, but each one represents a distinct and specific place of habitation, a named piece of ground with its own unrecorded history.