The name itself is a kind of archaeology, preserving the moment when local memory had stretched as far as it could go and could only conclude that the builders must have been something other than ordinary people.

Megalithic tombs of this type are among the oldest surviving human constructions in Ireland, raised by Neolithic farming communities roughly four to six thousand years ago. They served as collective burial monuments, places where the remains of the dead were deposited over generations, often alongside pottery, flint tools, and other material. The principal scholarly record for this site comes from Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, whose Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, Volume II, covering County Mayo, was published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 1964. That volume systematically documented the megalithic monuments of the county at a time when many were poorly recorded or known only to local communities, and it remains a foundational reference for anyone working on the prehistory of the west of Ireland. Mayo has an unusually dense concentration of such tombs, a reflection both of the county's early settlement and of the durability of the large stones used in their construction.