A corn kiln, in this context, is a small stone-built drying structure, typically a bowl or flue kiln, used to dry harvested grain before it could be milled or stored. In the damp climate of the west of Ireland, grain rarely dried sufficiently in the field alone, making these kilns a practical necessity rather than a luxury on any working farm.

The townland of Oiligh sits in County Mayo, a county where subsistence farming persisted well into the nineteenth century and where the rhythms of crop cultivation were shaped as much by weather and soil as by market forces. Corn kilns of this type are generally associated with the period running from the early medieval era through to the post-medieval centuries, though many continued in use, or were rebuilt on earlier foundations, right up to the years before the Famine. Their presence in the landscape is often subtle, reduced over time to a low circular or oval depression, a scatter of heat-reddened stones, or a slight rise where walls have collapsed inward. The designation of this particular structure as "old" in its recorded name suggests it was already regarded as a relic by the time it was formally noted, perhaps long disused and folded back into the surrounding ground.