At twenty-one metres across but only a metre high, it spreads low across the ground rather than rising to any dramatic point, and parts of its kerb, the ring of small boulders that once defined its outer edge, survive only in fragments. To a passing eye it might look like a natural rise in the ground, or simply a heap of stones cleared from surrounding fields. In fact, some of those larger field-clearance boulders added to the north and north-east are exactly that, deposited in recent times and blurring the original form of a much older structure.

Cairns of this kind are prehistoric funerary monuments, mounds of stone raised over burials, sometimes covering a central chamber or cist. The kerb that survives here in places is a characteristic feature, intended to contain the cairn material and mark its boundary. What makes the Golden Hill example quietly interesting is its relationship to the landscape around it. Some two hundred and fifty metres to the north-east lies a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead common in early medieval Ireland, typically dating to between the sixth and tenth centuries. The proximity of the two monuments does not necessarily imply a direct connection, since cairns are generally much older than ringforts, but it does suggest that this particular corner of the Wicklow hillside was visited, settled, and marked by people across a very long stretch of time.