These circular enclosures were the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, typically dating from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century, and they are scattered across the Irish landscape in their thousands. Yet each one occupies its own particular patch of ground, and the cashel at Cahircalla More sits quietly in a part of Clare where the limestone geology made stone the natural building material, drawn straight from the land beneath a farmer's feet.

The very name of the townland carries the memory of the structure. The Irish word cathair, from which "cahir" and "cahircalla" partly derive, refers precisely to a stone fort of this kind, suggesting that this enclosure was prominent enough, and old enough, to have given the surrounding area its identity long before any map was drawn. Ringforts in general served as protected farmsteads for a single family or kin group, with the enclosing wall providing security for livestock as much as for people. In stone-rich parts of Munster and Connacht, the cashel form was the logical expression of that need, the walls sometimes reaching considerable thickness and height.