Court tombs are among the oldest megalithic burial structures in Ireland, typically dating to around 4000 BCE, and they take their name from the open, semi-circular forecourt of upright stones that leads into the roofed gallery where the dead were placed. They are found almost exclusively in the northern half of the island, and Mayo has a notable concentration of them, scattered across bogland and farmland alike.

The Rathoonagh example is recorded in the foundational survey of Mayo's megalithic monuments compiled by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin, published by the Stationery Office in Dublin in 1964. That volume remains the baseline reference for the county's prehistoric tombs, and the Rathoonagh site is included among the structures the two scholars catalogued in the field. De Valera and Ó Nualláin spent years systematically working through Ireland's megalithic record, county by county, and their Mayo volume brought rigorous documentation to sites that had often been noted only in passing or not at all. The fact that a structure in Rathoonagh warranted inclusion is itself a small indication that something survives above ground, even if the monument has seen the wear common to thousands of years of exposure and agricultural activity.