Round towers, the tall narrow free-standing belfries built in Ireland roughly between the ninth and twelfth centuries, served monastic communities as bell towers, landmarks, and places of refuge during raids. Most of the well-known examples, at Glendalough or Cashel, draw steady attention. Noughaval is not among the famous ones, which is part of what makes its presence here worth noting.

The site at Noughaval is associated with an early Christian foundation in an area where such settlements were once relatively common across the limestone plateau of the Burren. The tower itself survives only in partial form, as is the case with many examples whose upper sections collapsed over centuries of neglect or deliberate stone-robbing. The surrounding area retains traces of the broader ecclesiastical enclosure that would have defined the original monastic precinct, and the ruined medieval church nearby suggests the site remained in some form of use long after the monastic period had formally ended.