These coastal promontory forts are among the more quietly dramatic archaeological features of the Irish seaboard, cut off from the mainland by earthen banks or stone ramparts that still, after a thousand or more years, give a clear impression of enclosure and intention.

Promontory forts of this type are found in considerable numbers along the western and north-western coasts of Ireland, where the Atlantic has carved the land into the kinds of jagged projections that lent themselves naturally to fortification. The basic principle is simple: a defensive wall or bank, sometimes doubled, is thrown across the landward approach, while the remaining sides are left to the cliffs and the sea. Occupation evidence from comparable sites elsewhere in Ireland tends to cluster in the Iron Age and early medieval periods, though many sites were likely used across long stretches of time. An Ghleadraigh, in the townland landscape of Mayo's coast, sits within a region that has been inhabited since prehistory, and the fort there represents one node in a wider pattern of coastal settlement and control.