Where a typical ringfort was built up from dug earth and turves, a cashel was raised in dry-stone walling, making use of whatever local stone the landscape offered. Thousands of ringforts of both kinds are scattered across Ireland, most of them dating from roughly the sixth to the tenth centuries, and they served as the fortified farmsteads of farming families across the social spectrum, from minor lords down to free farmers.

Cashels are particularly associated with the west of Ireland, where stone is abundant and the thin soils make earthwork construction less practical. Clare, sitting at the edge of the Burren's limestone plateau and its surrounding lowlands, has a notable concentration of them. The townland name Lismuinga itself is worth a moment's attention: "lis" is an Irish term for an earthen ringfort enclosure, which appears frequently in place names across the country even where the monument in question turns out to be a stone cashel rather than an earthwork. The naming suggests a long local familiarity with the site, whatever its precise form.