The structure is classified as a possible ring-barrow, a type of funerary mound common in Bronze Age Ireland, typically consisting of a central earthen mound surrounded by a circular ditch, known as a fosse, and an outer bank. What makes this particular example quietly remarkable is not what it contains or even what it looks like on the ground, but the way it seems to flicker in and out of visibility across aerial photography taken at different times of year.

The monument itself is modest in scale: a low circular mound of approximately nine metres in diameter, enclosed by a fosse and an external bank that bring the overall diameter to around twenty-two metres. Its outline was clearly visible on aerial imagery captured in March 2009, and again on imagery from March 2018. Yet photography taken the following November, just eight months later, showed no trace of it at all. This seasonal effect is well known in aerial archaeology; low earthworks that cast readable shadows or create crop and soil differences in spring or summer light can become entirely invisible once vegetation dies back or lighting angles shift. The Ballyoran barrow appears to be particularly susceptible to this, making it a site that exists more reliably as a satellite image than as a feature most people would notice walking past it. The structure was identified through the work of Dr. Rob O'Hara and compiled by Caimin O'Brien in early 2020.