What makes this particular monument quietly compelling is the precision with which its surviving elements can still be read, even in a ruined state. Court tombs, one of Ireland's oldest monument types, are so named for the open, semicircular forecourt that typically fronts the burial gallery, a space thought to have served some communal or ceremonial function for the communities that built them.

The mound at Gortaquill runs to about 25 metres in length, with the court and gallery positioned at its north-eastern end. The gallery itself extends 5 metres and is divided into two chambers of roughly equal length, separated by a segmenting jamb stone at the north. The front chamber retains its northern entrance jamb, with two stones forming the north wall behind it and a single slab making up the opposite side. The rear chamber is better preserved along its north side, where four stones remain, though only one survives on the south. Notably, the gallery has no backstone, leaving it open at the far end. A courtstone adjoins the south side of the gallery, and approximately 3.5 metres to the east, beyond a fence line, are two further stones that may also be court elements, though their status remains uncertain. The site was documented by Ruaidhrí de Valera and Seán Ó Nualláin in their 1972 survey of megalithic tombs, which catalogued this example as the first in their Cavan sequence.