The name itself offers a quiet clue: Oughaval derives from the Irish Uaimh Fhábhail, sometimes interpreted as relating to a cave or hollow, a name type often associated with early ecclesiastical sites in the west of Ireland where Christianity took root in remote and marginal landscapes during the early medieval period.

Beyond the name and the physical fact of the ruin, the documentary record for this particular site remains thin. What survives above ground, as with many ruined churches scattered across Mayo, is likely a fragment of a much longer story, one that could span early Christian foundation, medieval parish use, and eventual abandonment during the upheavals of the post-Reformation centuries. Rural church ruins of this kind frequently served as local burial grounds long after the building itself fell out of liturgical use, and it is not uncommon to find grave markers of varying ages gathered around walls that have not sheltered a congregation for generations.