Medieval town walls and associated earthworks were not built for villages; they signal that a place once carried considerably more weight than its present scale might suggest.

Ardrahan's significance in the medieval period is not difficult to place in context. The area lies in territory that was long contested between Gaelic lordships and Anglo-Norman interests, and settlements that warranted formal defences were typically those with administrative, military, or economic functions. A fortified enclosure or walled boundary, whether of earth, stone, or a combination of both, would have marked Ardrahan as a place worth protecting, and worth controlling. The wider landscape of south Galway is dotted with the remnants of Anglo-Norman colonisation, from tower houses to moated sites, and Ardrahan fits within that pattern of fortified settlement. The presence of a castle at Ardrahan, associated with the de Burgh family and later with the Burke lords who succeeded them in Connacht, points to a concentration of power here that would naturally have extended to the surrounding settlement.