It is, in fact, a ring barrow, a type of prehistoric funerary monument typically consisting of a low central mound ringed by a ditch and an outer bank. This particular example is modest even by the standards of the form: the raised central area measures just 3.5 metres in diameter, enclosed by an earthen scarp, a shallow fosse or ditch, and a low external bank whose combined width extends to about 1.5 metres. What makes it stranger still is that the ditch and outer bank are simply absent along one arc, the stretch running from west-southwest to north-northwest, where the monument presses directly against a neighbouring ring barrow immediately to its west-southwest.

This proximity to other monuments is not coincidental. When field surveyor Mark Keegan recorded the site in November 2004, he noted that at least two other ring barrows lie close by, one roughly 40 metres to the north-northwest and others in the surrounding area. The clustering suggests this corner of Duncummin was, at some point in prehistory, a place set aside for the dead, or at least for commemorating them. The shared boundary between two of these monuments, where the outer earthworks of one simply give way to the edge of the other, raises quiet questions about whether they were constructed at the same time, by the same community, or in deliberate relation to one another. The interior of this barrow remains level and free of overgrowth, which at least means the basic form is still legible in the landscape.