Known in Irish as a rath, a ringfort is an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches arranged in a rough circle. They were the standard unit of rural settlement in Ireland from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century, and Kerry has an unusually dense concentration of them, reflecting the county's long history of settled pastoral farming.

The rath at Maglass belongs to this widespread but still poorly understood category of monument. Each one, however unremarkable it might appear from a distance, represents a household, a family, a working farm that someone built and defended and lived within. The enclosing bank was less a military fortification than a statement of ownership and a practical barrier against cattle straying or being stolen. Inside, there would once have been timber buildings, a hearth, domestic animals, and all the ordinary texture of early Irish rural life. The specific history of this particular site, including who built it, when, and what became of it, remains unrecorded in any publicly available source at present.