The name Doonmacreena contains the Irish "dún", meaning a fort or enclosed settlement, which suggests that human effort has shaped this ground for a long time, possibly across several different periods. Earthworks of this kind can range from the remains of a ringfort, a roughly circular enclosure used as a farmstead during the early medieval period, to field boundaries, burial mounds, or the eroded outlines of much older activity. Without more detail, the earthwork at Doonmacreena belongs to that category of places that are known to exist but not yet fully understood.