That word carries some weight in archaeological usage. It signals that the stones do not fit neatly into any recognised monument type, that they are not quite an alignment, not quite a kerb, not quite a collapsed structure of obvious purpose. They are just there, flat on the ground, adjacent to something better understood.

The five-stone circle nearby is a type of small stone circle particular to the Cork and Kerry region, typically consisting of five upright stones with a recumbent, or horizontally placed, stone opposite the entrance. The prostrate slabs at Cloghboola Beg were noted in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Volume 3, published in 1997, which catalogued monuments across the mid Cork area. They were given their own separate record while also being cross-referenced under the stone circle entry, a small bureaucratic detail that nonetheless reflects genuine archaeological uncertainty about how the two features relate to one another. Whether the slabs are contemporary with the circle, whether they represent a later addition, or whether their proximity is incidental, remains an open question.