The term is used in Irish archaeology to identify settlements that functioned as towns in the medieval or early modern period, places that may have held markets, supported crafts, or anchored a local economy, yet which were later abandoned, shrank, or were simply overtaken by the landscape. Carrowncurry holds this status, quietly, in a part of Connacht where such traces are easy to miss.

The townland name itself offers a small clue. "Carrown" derives from the Irish "ceathrú", meaning a quarter, a unit of land measurement common across Mayo and the wider west of Ireland. The "curry" element may relate to a personal name or a local feature, though without detailed documentary evidence it is difficult to say more with confidence. What the classification as a historic town does suggest is that at some point, this ground supported a community substantial enough to warrant formal recognition in the archaeological record, a settlement that existed beyond the purely agricultural, however modest its scale might have been by the standards of larger medieval towns elsewhere in Ireland.