A cashel is a ringfort built from dry-stone walling rather than earthen banks, a distinction that reflects the geology beneath it as much as the preferences of whoever ordered its construction. In the limestone country of Clare, where the Burren's influence spreads across the wider region, stone was simply what the ground offered, and early medieval farmers and landholders built accordingly.

Ringforts of all kinds, whether raised from earth or stone, were the dominant settlement form in Ireland from roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries. They typically enclosed a farmstead, providing a degree of security for a family, their livestock, and their stores. The cashel form is particularly associated with the west of Ireland, where arable soil could be thin and rock was never far from the surface. Poulbaun itself is a townland name with roots in the Irish, suggesting pale or white soil, which would not be unusual in a district where limestone breaks through at every turn. Beyond its classification and location, the specific history of this particular structure, its builders, any finds made within it, and its condition on the ground, remains to be fully documented in the public record.