The example at Corbally in County Clare is a rath, the term used for a ringfort constructed primarily from earthworks rather than stone, typically consisting of one or more circular banks and ditches enclosing a domestic space. These were the farmsteads of early medieval Ireland, occupied roughly between the fifth and twelfth centuries, and the people who lived within them were neither kings nor paupers but the farming families who formed the backbone of Gaelic society.

Clare is exceptionally rich in such monuments, its landscape shaped by centuries of agricultural settlement that left these circular earthworks distributed across townlands throughout the county. Corbally, as a place name, derives from the Irish Corrbhaile, sometimes interpreted as meaning an odd or pointed settlement, and townlands bearing the name appear in several Irish counties. The rath form, with its raised bank defining a circular enclosure, would have served as a boundary marker, a modest defensive feature against opportunistic cattle raiders, and a statement of territorial occupation. Over the centuries, many such sites became associated in local folklore with the aos sí, the supernatural otherworldly beings of Irish tradition, and were left undisturbed out of a mixture of respect and unease, which is a significant reason so many have survived into the present day.