A boulder-burial is exactly what the name suggests: a large, often rounded glacial boulder placed directly over a burial, without the upright stones or cairn material that define a dolmen or wedge tomb. These monuments are concentrated along the western seaboard of Ireland, particularly in Clare and Galway, and their simplicity is deceptive. The act of manoeuvring a boulder of sufficient size to cover a grave required considerable communal effort and, presumably, meaning.

Boulder-burials are generally dated to the Bronze Age, somewhere in the broad span between 2500 and 500 BC, though precise dating for individual examples is difficult without excavation. The form is thought to represent a local or regional tradition rather than a widespread practice, which makes the cluster of examples in Connacht and Munster all the more intriguing. Ballybackagh itself is a townland name suggesting a back or rear place, possibly indicating marginal land or a boundary location, which is not an unusual setting for prehistoric funerary monuments.