Workhouses were constructed across Ireland under the Poor Law system, particularly in the years surrounding the Great Famine of the 1840s, and were designed to house the destitute in exchange for labour. They were deliberately austere, intended to deter all but the most desperate, and the conditions within them were frequently appalling. That a structure of this kind is recorded at Lavally places it within one of the most painful chapters of the county's, and the country's, past.

Beyond its classification and location, the available detail on this particular site is thin. Galway was among the counties most severely affected by the Famine, and workhouses throughout the west of Ireland became overwhelmed during the late 1840s, their populations far exceeding the numbers they were built to accommodate. Whether the Lavally structure was a principal workhouse building, an auxiliary facility, or some related element of the broader Poor Law infrastructure is not currently possible to say with confidence. What is certain is that such buildings, wherever they appear in the Irish landscape, carry a weight that their often ruinous stonework does little to conceal.