Field systems of this kind are among the quieter categories of Irish archaeology, easy to walk past without recognising them for what they are: the fossilised logic of an earlier agricultural world, where boundaries of stone or earthen bank divided land for cultivation, grazing, or tenure. They can date from the Bronze Age through to the post-medieval period, and their precise age is often difficult to establish without excavation or detailed survey work.

Garraun as a place-name derives from the Irish "garrán", generally meaning a grove or thicket of trees, a reminder that the landscape of Connacht was not always as open as it appears today. County Galway contains a remarkable density of such field monuments, many of them on marginal land that was never subsequently ploughed or built over, which is precisely why they survive. The details specific to this particular system, its extent, its date, the form of its boundaries, and any associated features, remain to be fully documented.