The example at Boolteens, in County Kerry, is among those that have slipped below the threshold of common record, its details not yet widely documented. A rath, to give it its Irish name, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built during the early medieval period, broadly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. These were farmsteads rather than military fortifications, the homes of farmers and their families, their livestock kept safe within the banks at night.

Boolteens is a small townland in the Iveragh peninsula region of Kerry, a part of Ireland where the density of early medieval settlement was considerable. The landscape here retains traces of continuous human occupation stretching back millennia, and a rath in this location would fit a well-established pattern of early Christian period farming life. The earthen banks of such enclosures were sometimes topped with timber palisades or thorn hedging, and the interior might contain timber or wattle-and-daub buildings, a souterrain (an underground stone-lined passage used for storage or refuge), or evidence of craft activity. Over centuries, many raths were absorbed into later field systems or ploughed flat, so those that remain above ground carry some significance simply by surviving.

The site sits within a working rural landscape, and as with many earthwork monuments in Kerry, the clearest sense of its form is often gained by walking its perimeter rather than standing at its centre. Early morning or low winter light can help reveal the subtle rise and fall of the banks where vegetation has softened the original profile.