These circular enclosures, known in Irish as raths, were the standard farmstead of early medieval Ireland, typically defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches surrounding a central living area. They were built by farming families rather than warriors, and tens of thousands of them survive across the island in varying states of preservation, some dramatically visible, others reduced to a faint crop mark readable only from the air.

The Tully More example belongs to this vast and quietly remarkable category of monument. Raths were constructed roughly between the sixth and twelfth centuries, and their earthworks served as much to define ownership and status as to provide any serious defence. Livestock would have been kept inside at night, and the enclosed space might have contained timber buildings, souterrains (underground stone-lined passages used for storage or refuge), and the full domestic life of an early Irish household. Mayo, with its mix of lowland pasture and bog, contains numerous such sites, many of them incompletely documented and still waiting for systematic attention.