A ditch barrow of this kind, sometimes called a ring-ditch barrow, is defined not by a raised mound but by a low fosse, a cut ditch, enclosing a central area. The feature is easy to overlook on the surface, which perhaps explains why such monuments have not always received the same attention as their more visually dramatic counterparts.

Excavation by Doody between April and May 1982 revealed the site in considerable detail. The enclosing fosse was roughly one metre wide and 0.65 metres deep, and fragments of charcoal recovered from it returned a radiocarbon date of around 1535 BC, placing the monument firmly in the Middle Bronze Age. The finds from the fosse itself were sparse: two small sherds of coarse pottery and a handful of waste flint flakes. At the centre of the ring stood a cist, a stone-lined burial box, containing a ceramic urn and the cremated remains of five individuals. Around that cist, the excavator identified traces of a circular timber structure, interpreted as a mortuary enclosure of some kind, likely built to house or mark the burial before or after interment. Three pits were also found within the ditch barrow. The first held burnt bone and charcoal; the second, a larger feature filled with charcoal-enriched soil and stones, produced a radiocarbon date of around 860 BC. That second date is several centuries later than the primary burial, which raises the possibility that the site continued to attract activity well after its original construction. Doody suggested that if all three pits are roughly contemporary with one another, they may connect to a Late Bronze Age settlement identified nearby at Ballyveelish, bringing together what might otherwise seem like isolated ritual and domestic traces into a single, longer-lived landscape.