Court tombs are among Ireland's earliest megalithic monuments, typically consisting of a roofless semicircular forecourt of upright stones leading into one or more burial galleries. They were built by Neolithic farming communities, probably during the fourth millennium BC, and are concentrated heavily in the northern half of the island, with Mayo holding a notable share of surviving examples.

The primary scholarly record for this structure comes from the landmark survey carried out by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, published in 1964 as part of their multi-volume catalogue of Ireland's megalithic tombs. That project represented the first systematic attempt to locate, describe, and classify the country's prehistoric stone monuments at a county level, and the Mayo volume documented a landscape still scattered with the remains of Neolithic activity. De Valera and Ó Nualláin's fieldwork established a baseline that later archaeologists have continued to build upon, and the Cloonboy tomb entered the formal record through their efforts.