The name Tagheen derives from the Irish Teachín, meaning small house, a diminutive that often attaches to early ecclesiastical sites where a modest oratory or cell once stood. That connection between a place-name and a vanished religious function is frequently the first clue that something old and significant once occupied a patch of ground that might otherwise seem unremarkable.

Beyond the place-name itself, the documentary record for this particular ruin is presently thin. What can be said with reasonable confidence is that ruined churches of this type in rural Mayo generally belong to a long continuum of use, sometimes stretching from early medieval foundations through to post-Reformation abandonment, when many parish churches fell out of regular use or were simply left to decay as communities shifted and resources dried up. The physical fabric of such ruins, where walls survive, often preserves evidence of several building phases, with later stonework patching earlier courses, and the whole slowly being reclaimed by grass and lichen.