At the centre of a heather-covered mound on the slopes of Scartnadrinymountain in County Waterford, a slight depression draws the eye to a large exposed slab. That slab, measuring roughly 1.1 metres by 0.75 metres, may be the lintel of a cist, a type of stone-lined burial box used during the Bronze Age to contain the remains of the dead. The cairn itself, around 10.8 metres east to west and nearly a metre high in places, sits on a col, a saddle of lower ground between higher points, with the Carrickaruppera rock outcrop rising to the north and another area of exposed rock to the south-east. It is a quietly purposeful arrangement, the kind that suggests its builders knew exactly what they were doing with the landscape around them.

The site forms part of a wider Bronze Age complex in the Monavullagh Mountains, documented by archaeologist Michael Moore in a 1995 study that identified the area as both a settlement and a ritual centre. A ring-cairn, a circular arrangement of stones with a hollow interior associated with burial and ceremonial use, sits just 30 metres to the north, reinforcing the sense that this particular stretch of upland carried real significance for the communities who used it several thousand years ago. The cairn was damaged during forestry operations in 1993, though the immediate area was never planted over, leaving the monument exposed and accessible on open ground.