Windmills were never common in Ireland; the island's geography and the economics of milling generally favoured water-powered mills on the many available rivers and streams. Where windmills do appear, they tend to cluster in low-lying coastal or inland areas where reliable wind was available but fast-running water was not, and their ruins are often mistaken for tower houses or old fortifications by passers-by unfamiliar with the form.

The ruined tower at Derrydonnell More belongs to a small and scattered group of surviving Irish windmill structures, most of which date from the seventeenth or eighteenth century, when improved millstone technology and changing grain markets made wind-powered milling a more viable proposition in certain parts of Connacht. The details of who built this particular mill, when it was constructed, and how long it remained in operation are not currently documented in any accessible public record, which places it among those monuments whose physical presence outlasts the paper trail that might explain it. The townland name itself, Derrydonnell, derives from the Irish and is associated with the wider barony of Loughrea, a part of Galway with a long history of agricultural settlement stretching back through the medieval period.