On the ground today there is little to suggest an urban past, yet the label points to something that once had sufficient scale or significance to be recorded as a settlement of consequence, its streets and structures long since absorbed back into the landscape.

The classification of a place as a historic town in the Irish archaeological record generally implies evidence of planned or organic settlement activity, sometimes medieval in origin, sometimes later, with features that might once have included market functions, a street pattern, property boundaries, or ecclesiastical and defensive structures. Mayo has no shortage of such ghost settlements, places that flourished briefly under Norman influence or during the plantation period before declining into farmland and memory. Without more specific documentation currently available for Cartoon, the precise period and character of its urban phase remain unclear, though the townland name itself may preserve a linguistic trace worth pursuing. "Cartoon" likely derives from the Irish "Ceathrú", meaning a quarter, a unit of land division common across Connacht that sometimes indicates early administrative or territorial organisation.