The word "bullán" in Irish refers to a stone with one or more cup-shaped hollows, often associated with early Christian sites and thought to have been used for grinding or for ritual purposes. Whether the name here reflects a genuine connection to such a stone, or whether it has accumulated through local usage over centuries, is the kind of detail that the place itself holds close.

Beyond the name, the documentary record for this particular tower is, at present, thin. It is listed as a monument in the national heritage inventory, but the available details have not yet been made public in any accessible form. What can be said is that tower structures in this part of Connacht tend to belong to one of a handful of traditions: medieval tower houses, which were fortified residences built by Gaelic and Anglo-Norman lords from roughly the fourteenth century onwards, or later watchtowers and signal towers erected during the Napoleonic-era coastal defence programme of the early nineteenth century. Rinneen sits in a landscape shaped by both of those histories, and the name Bullaundooda suggests the site may have an older layer beneath whatever structure is visible today.

For anyone making their way to Rinneen with this place in mind, the honest advice is to go with curiosity rather than expectation. The landscape of south Connemara and the Galway coast rewards careful attention, and a structure with so little written about it is likely to offer more questions than answers on the ground.