The word "caher" derives from the Irish "cathair", referring to a stone ringfort, and the presence of a cashel here, a type of ringfort built from dry-stone walling rather than earthen banks, suggests this corner of the Burren landscape has been shaped by human settlement for well over a thousand years. That a defended enclosure was considered worth building here at all speaks to the importance of the location to whoever farmed or sheltered within its walls during the early medieval period.

Cashels of this kind are closely associated with early medieval Ireland, roughly the period between the fifth and twelfth centuries, when enclosed farmsteads served as the basic unit of rural life. The circular stone wall, sometimes several metres thick, defined a household's territory, protected livestock from wolves and rivals alike, and signalled a family's standing within the local hierarchy. Clare is particularly well furnished with such monuments, the stony ground of the Burren lending itself to dry-stone construction in a way that softer soils elsewhere did not. The specific history of the Cahercloggaun example, including who built it, when, and how long it remained in use, remains to be fully documented.