The term describes a particular kind of prehistoric funerary monument found mainly in the southwest of Ireland, in which a substantial capstone is raised on low supports to create a minimal, ground-level chamber. This one is not especially grand, but it has an odd, almost improvised quality to it: a second slab, broken and loosely placed, stands on edge beside the cover-stone to the northeast, with a smaller fragment resting on top of the main stone, as though gathered there over centuries rather than arranged with any clear intent.

The cover-stone measures 1.7 metres by 1.5 metres and is around half a metre thick, giving it a considerable solidity and weight. It was recorded by Seán Ó Nualláin in 1978 and later included in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Ó Nualláin was one of the principal scholars of Irish megalithic monuments in the twentieth century, and his systematic cataloguing of boulder-burials helped establish them as a distinct monument type rather than simply the remnants of collapsed or robbed tombs. The Teernahillane example sits within a wider prehistoric landscape: just three metres to the southeast stands a pair of standing stones, the kind of simple but deliberate arrangement that suggests this corner of the Miskish uplands was a place of some significance to the communities who shaped it.