The example at Rockfield in County Kerry is a rath, the term used for an earthen ringfort, typically circular in plan and defined by one or more banks and ditches. These enclosures were the standard farmstead of early medieval Ireland, occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and were home to a single family and their livestock. That so many survive at all is partly because later generations regarded them with superstition, associating them with the otherworld and leaving them well alone.

The Rockfield rath sits within a county that is exceptionally well populated with such monuments, Kerry's varied landscape having preserved earthworks that elsewhere were lost to intensive agriculture. Beyond its classification and location, the documentary record for this particular site remains sparse at present, which is itself a reminder of how much early medieval rural life still awaits systematic attention. The rath as a monument type was not a defensive structure in any military sense; the banks served to define a boundary, to contain animals, and to signal the social standing of the household within. Some raths were home to minor lords, others to free farmers, and the scale and number of enclosing banks can sometimes suggest which.