In Irish tradition, a "caltragh" or "cealtrach" refers to an old burial ground, often one associated with the early Christian period or pre-dating it entirely, and the name attached to this cashel in County Mayo has quietly preserved that memory for centuries. A cashel, to put it simply, is a stone-walled enclosure of early medieval date, the kind of defended farmstead or ecclesiastical enclosure once common across the west of Ireland. That this one came to be used for burial, and that local tradition held onto the fact through place-name alone, suggests a layered history that the ground has not yet given up fully.

The interior of the cashel is heavily overgrown and strewn with stone, which makes any close examination difficult. In the south-western quadrant, however, something more deliberate emerges: a roughly square area measuring approximately 6.5 metres north to south and 8 metres east to west, where stones are concentrated more densely than elsewhere. Most are small to medium in size, barely breaking the surface, but some are clearly set upright. These are almost certainly grave markers, though no formal excavation appears to have confirmed their precise date or character. The place holds its history close, visible enough to be suggestive, but obscured enough to resist easy reading.