Ringforts, known in Irish as raths, are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, with estimates suggesting around 40,000 once existed across the island. They are generally circular enclosures defined by one or more banks and ditches, built primarily during the early medieval period between roughly 500 and 1000 AD. Most served as enclosed farmsteads, the raised banks offering a degree of protection for a family, their livestock, and their dwelling. That so many survive at all, even in degraded form, owes much to a long-standing folk belief that ringforts were fairy forts, places it was deeply unwise to disturb.

The townland of Tully is a name found in several counties across Ireland, derived from the Irish word tulach, meaning a small hill or hillock, which gives some sense of the kind of gentle, elevated ground where early farming communities tended to settle. Sligo itself has a notable concentration of prehistoric and early medieval monuments, set against a landscape shaped by limestone and glacial activity. The rath at Tully fits into this broader pattern of rural enclosure, likely marking a spot where a family or small community worked and lived during the centuries when such earthwork construction was the norm across the Irish countryside.