Cairns of this kind were typically raised as burial monuments or territorial markers, their builders piling loose stone over the dead or across a prominent ridgeline as a signal to whoever moved through the landscape below. That this one has a name attached to a specific townland suggests it has been known and noted locally for a long time, even if the wider record has little to say about it.

Beyond its presence on the hillside and its association with Knockboha, the documented detail for this particular cairn is sparse. The name Knockboha is likely derived from the Irish, with "cnoc" meaning hill, though the second element is less immediately transparent and may refer to a personal name or a landscape feature now obscured by time. Mayo's uplands are scattered with prehistoric monuments of this kind, many of them unexcavated and still yielding little beyond their outline and their elevation.