What makes this ring barrow quietly arresting is precisely how little it announces itself. The whole circular feature measures barely five metres across, defined not by grand earthworks but by a shallow encircling fosse, a type of ditch used in prehistoric funerary monuments to separate the burial space from the surrounding land, and a low outer bank that rises only a fraction above the surrounding grass. Wild irises have taken root in the fosse all the way round, and rushes and briars have pushed in from the east. The interior is grassed over, studded with more irises, and carries the faint marks of livestock that have wandered across it.

The monument was identified during a field survey carried out by Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly on 17 February 2009. Ring barrows, which typically date to the Bronze Age, were used as burial sites and are characterised by this combination of a central area enclosed by a ditch and bank, sometimes covering a cremation burial beneath the turf. At Ballinglanna, a slight depression about 1.3 metres wide at the east-north-east of the outer bank may mark an original entrance, though it is tentative. The surrounding landscape of land drains and field boundaries has grown up around it over centuries, leaving the monument caught between modern agricultural infrastructure and the long duration of its own existence on the ridge.