The passage tombs here are among the most ancient built things in the country, predating the pyramids at Giza by several thousand years. A passage tomb, in basic terms, is a burial chamber reached by a roofed stone corridor, typically set within a circular mound and oriented with deliberate astronomical precision.

The Carrowmore complex sits in a broad, flat valley beneath the hill of Knocknarea, on whose summit rests the unexcavated cairn traditionally associated with the legendary queen Maeve. Radiocarbon dates obtained from excavations at Carrowmore have pushed some of the tombs back to around 4000 BC or earlier, making them contemporary with the earliest phases of Neolithic settlement in Ireland. The arrangement of the monuments across the landscape has led some researchers to suggest the complex was laid out with the central tomb, known as Listoghil, as a focal point, with the surrounding tombs oriented towards it. Listoghil itself is distinguished by a large decorated stone, and unlike many of the smaller satellite tombs, it retains substantial portions of its original cairn material.