It sits in that peculiar category of Irish field antiquities that are known to exist, are considered worth protecting, and yet remain largely undescribed, their function, age, and history held in archival quiet.

Enclosures of this kind appear across the Irish landscape in considerable variety. Some are the remains of early medieval ringforts, circular earthworks that once surrounded a farmstead and offered a degree of protection to livestock and family alike. Others are ecclesiastical, enclosing an early church or burial ground within a curving boundary that often predates any surviving stonework. Still others are prehistoric, their original purpose difficult to determine without excavation. Without further detail specific to this site, it is not possible to say which category the Ballycorney example falls into, only that the land around it has been considered archaeologically significant enough to record. County Clare is particularly dense with such features, from the limestone karst of the Burren to the more fertile lowlands further east, and many enclosures in the county remain incompletely studied.