These enclosures, known variously as raths or ringforts, were the most common form of rural settlement in early medieval Ireland, typically built between roughly 500 and 1000 AD to protect a farming household, its family, and its livestock. Thousands survive across the country, many reduced to little more than a raised ring in a field, overlooked by anyone who does not know what they are looking at.

The townland name Poulawillin is Irish in origin, as is the case with most Clare placenames, and the presence of a rath here fits a broader pattern of dense early medieval settlement across the county. Clare is particularly rich in these monuments, its limestone landscape preserving earthworks that might have been ploughed out elsewhere. A rath typically consisted of one or more circular banks of earth and stone, sometimes accompanied by an external ditch, enclosing a space where a timber or stone dwelling would have stood. The interior might also have contained outbuildings, animal pens, and occasionally a souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage used for storage or refuge. Beyond the enclosing bank, the surrounding land would have been farmed by the household in a system of small fields and pasture.