A rath, as this type is known in Irish, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, built predominantly during the early medieval period, roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries. They served as farmsteads and homesteads for the farming families of Gaelic Ireland, their raised banks offering a degree of protection for livestock as much as for people.

Kerry is particularly dense with such monuments, a reflection of both the county's long settlement history and the relative survival of earthworks in its landscape. The townland name Shanahill itself carries a trace of the past within it, deriving most likely from the Irish, suggesting an old or ancient feature in the local topography. Without more detailed fieldwork records available for this specific site, what can be said with confidence is that its classification as a rath places it within a tradition of rural enclosure that shaped the organisation of land, family, and community across early medieval Ireland for centuries.

For those who find themselves in the area and curious to locate it, ringforts in Kerry are often visible as low, grassed-over circular banks in fields, sometimes still holding their form remarkably well, sometimes reduced to little more than a slight rise in the ground. The best time to spot earthwork remains is during low winter sun or after a dry summer when crop and grass growth can reveal the outline of buried or eroded features.