Marked on a 1916 Ordnance Survey map as 'O'Davoren's Sch. (Site of)', the fort at Cathair Mhic Neachtain has for generations been associated with the O'Davoren family, hereditary practitioners of brehon law, the Gaelic legal system that governed Irish society before the imposition of English common law. The label seems almost too neat, a tidy attribution pressed onto ancient stone.

The O'Davorens were a brehon family, meaning they belonged to a learned class of jurists who memorised, interpreted, and transmitted Irish law across generations, often within specific dynasties tied to particular territories. That the Burren produced such a school is not in doubt; manuscripts associated with the O'Davorens survive and are well documented. What is less certain is whether the cashel itself was ever actually the place of teaching. Elizabeth FitzPatrick, writing in 2008, raised this question directly, pointing out that a late medieval structure elsewhere in the townland, known as Cabhail Tighe Breac, may have a stronger claim. Located at the south-western end of the townland, this building has physical characteristics more consistent with the kind of space a law school might have occupied. Archaeological excavation at Cabhail Tighe Breac carried out in 2008 produced further evidence lending weight to that possibility.

Cathair Mhic Neachtain is a National Monument in State Care. The site itself sits within the broader landscape of the Burren, and Cabhail Tighe Breac lies nearby in the same townland, meaning that both the traditional attribution and its more recently proposed alternative occupy the same quiet stretch of Clare countryside, leaving the actual location of O'Davoren's school still, technically, an open question.