Cashels of this kind are closely associated with early medieval Ireland, roughly the sixth to twelfth centuries, when enclosed farmsteads of this type dotted the landscape in considerable numbers. Clare, with its limestone-rich terrain, produced many of them, and yet individual sites like this one can slip quietly beneath the surface of documented history, known to the land but not to the archive.

The classification alone tells us something. A cashel is distinguished from the more common earthen rath by its use of stone, a choice often dictated by local geology. In a county where the Burren's bare karst offers more rock than soil, dry-stone construction was the practical and abundant option. These enclosures typically protected a farmstead, perhaps housing a family of some local standing, their livestock, and whatever small structures served daily life. The term ringfort itself is something of a modern convenience, covering a wide variety of enclosed settlements that were not primarily defensive in the military sense, but rather demarcated domestic and agricultural space. Beyond that general framework, the specific history of this particular cashel in Nooan remains, for now, unrecorded in any accessible public form.