That is precisely what happened, though likely several thousand years ago. The structure is a boulder-burial, a monument type in which a substantial natural boulder is placed over a low setting of stones, generally understood to mark a burial. They are found almost exclusively in the south-west of Ireland, and while they share a family resemblance with the better-known portal tomb, they are considerably less dramatic in scale and far less studied.

The boulder here measures roughly 2.25 metres long, 1.5 metres wide, and rises to about 1.25 metres at its highest point, resting on three support stones. It was catalogued by the archaeologist Seán Ó Nualláin in 1978, whose survey work brought many of these quietly anomalous monuments to wider attention. The site sits on the southern side of the Owennagloor River basin, set into agricultural land that has long since swallowed whatever broader ritual or funerary landscape may once have surrounded it. Without excavation, little can be said about who was buried here or when exactly the monument was raised, but boulder-burials are generally associated with the Bronze Age.