Court tombs, sometimes called court cairns, are characterised by a semicircular or U-shaped forecourt formed from upright stones, which opens onto one or more roofed gallery chambers where the dead were placed. They belong broadly to the Neolithic period, roughly 4000 to 2500 BC, and are concentrated in the northern half of Ireland, with Mayo holding a particularly notable share of surviving examples.

The Rathoonagh example is documented in the foundational scholarly record for such monuments, the Survey of the Megalithic Tombs of Ireland, compiled by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin and published in 1964 as the volume covering County Mayo. De Valera was among the first researchers to systematically classify and map these structures across the island, and the Mayo volume remains a reference point for anyone working on the megalithic archaeology of the west. The survey work involved field visits, measurements, and comparative analysis at a time when many of these sites had received little formal attention, and it brought a degree of scholarly order to monuments that had long been part of the local landscape without being fully understood in their wider context.