A cashel is a type of ringfort built from dry-stone walling rather than earthen banks, and they are closely associated with early medieval Ireland, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, when such enclosures served as the fortified farmsteads of farmers, minor lords, and their households. Clare is particularly rich in them, owing in part to the county's abundance of limestone, which made stone construction the natural choice across much of the Burren and its fringes.

The townland name Bealnalicka, from the Irish meaning something close to the mouth or gap of the flagstone, hints at the character of the ground here, that distinctive karst terrain where flat slabs of pale limestone break the surface and the soil is thin. In such places, cashels were not merely a cultural preference but a practical one; earth banks would have been difficult to raise where bedrock lies just below the surface. The enclosing wall of a cashel could protect livestock from wolves and neighbours alike, and the interior would typically have held a timber or stone dwelling, perhaps ancillary structures, and a small yard. Thousands of ringforts of various kinds survive across Ireland, and each one represents a named family's claim on a patch of land during a period when such claims needed to be made visible and defensible.