It is a togher, a type of ancient trackway built from timber, brushwood, or other organic material laid across waterlogged or marshy ground to allow passage where the land would otherwise swallow a traveller whole. This particular example is classified as a class 2 togher, a designation that refers to its method of construction, typically involving split or round timbers arranged lengthways or as a corduroy surface across the bog.

Toghers are among the more quietly remarkable survivals in the Irish archaeological record. Because bogland is oxygen-poor and acidic, it preserves organic material with unusual fidelity, which means that wooden trackways laid down in the Bronze Age, Iron Age, or early medieval period can survive in recognisable form for thousands of years. The bog, in effect, does the conserving. Many Irish toghers have been dated through dendrochronology, the analysis of tree-ring patterns in the preserved timbers, yielding precise construction dates that would be impossible to recover from most other monument types. The Killaderry togher sits within a landscape that would have required exactly this kind of engineered solution, a route across ground that was passable only with deliberate effort and local knowledge of where solid footing could be laid.