Illaunmore, whose name derives from the Irish "oileán mór" meaning "big island", is home to what appears to have been a monastic or ecclesiastical settlement, a category of site that was once scattered throughout the islands and shorelines of the west of Ireland, where early Christian communities sought remoteness as a form of devotion. The precise nature and extent of the remains here are not well documented in the public record, which itself adds a particular quality to the site, one of those places where the gap in knowledge feels as telling as the monument itself.