Megalithic tombs, built from large upright stones capped with massive horizontal slabs, were constructed across Ireland roughly between 4000 and 2000 BC, and served as collective burial monuments as well as markers of territory and ritual significance for the communities that raised them.

The principal scholarly record for this site comes from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, whose Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Volume I, covering County Clare, was published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 1961. That volume remains a foundational reference for the megalithic archaeology of the county, cataloguing tomb types, orientations, and states of preservation across Clare's considerable concentration of prehistoric monuments. County Clare is particularly well represented in the Irish megalithic record, with court tombs, portal tombs, and wedge tombs, the last of these being the most numerous type in the west of Ireland, characterised by a wedge-shaped gallery that typically narrows toward the rear and was often used for multiple burials over extended periods.