Court tombs are among the earliest megalithic monuments in Ireland, built by Neolithic farming communities roughly five to six thousand years ago. What sets them apart from other passage or portal tomb forms is the open, semi-circular or oval stone court at the entrance, a roofless space that likely served some kind of ritual or communal function before burial rites were completed in the gallery beyond.

The Creevagh More tomb belongs to a tradition documented in detail by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin in their systematic survey of Mayo's megalithic monuments, published in 1964 as part of a wider multi-volume project covering the whole island. That survey remains one of the foundational works in Irish prehistoric archaeology, recording tombs at a time when many were already in partial collapse or obscured by later land use. Mayo as a county holds a particularly dense concentration of court tombs, a distribution that reflects both the suitability of its soils for early agriculture and the relative survival of upland and marginal ground that was never intensively redeveloped. The townland name Creevagh More, derived from the Irish for a place associated with a branching or tree-covered area, hints at the kind of terrain these communities moved through and shaped.