In Irish, "rath" refers to a ringfort, the circular earthwork enclosure that served as a farmstead and family seat across early medieval Ireland, and "carrick" derives from "carraig", meaning rock. A ringfort on a rocky place, then, named for what it is and where it sits, somewhere in the landscape of County Sligo.

Ringforts are among the most numerous archaeological monument types in Ireland, with perhaps fifty thousand or more once scattered across the island. They were typically built and occupied between roughly 500 and 1000 AD, though some were in use earlier or later. A bank of earth or stone, sometimes doubled or tripled for higher-status occupants, enclosed a domestic space where people kept livestock at night, stored grain, and lived out the rhythms of an early medieval agricultural life. The rath at Rathcarrick belongs to this broad tradition, a circular enclosure worn into the Sligo countryside over more than a millennium.