These circular enclosures, known variously as raths or ringforts, were the most common form of rural settlement in Ireland between roughly the sixth and twelfth centuries. A typical example consisted of one or more banks of earth or stone thrown up around a farmstead, less a defensive fortification than a boundary marker and a means of protecting livestock from wolves and opportunistic neighbours.

The place-name Caherrevagh itself is suggestive. "Caher" derives from the Irish "cathair", a term generally applied to a stone-built ringfort or enclosure, which hints that this part of Mayo may have had more than one such structure in its immediate vicinity at some point in the past. Cloonnameeltoge, the adjoining townland, contains "cluain", meaning a meadow or pasture, the kind of low-lying ground that early farming communities gravitated towards. Beyond what the names themselves imply, the documentary record for this particular site remains sparse.