This is a barrow, a prehistoric burial monument, and what makes it worth attention is not grandeur but geometry: a roughly level central platform about 9.3 metres across, ringed by a fosse, which is a cut ditch, and an outer bank of earth and stone. The whole thing measures approximately 21.5 metres west-north-west to east-south-east, and 20.5 metres north to south, giving it a subtly oval, subcircular shape rather than a perfect circle.

Barrows of this type are found across Ireland and date broadly to the Bronze Age, serving as burial or commemorative monuments for individuals or communities. They were constructed by cutting a ditch into the ground and piling the spoil outward to form a bank, with the slightly raised interior platform often covering a burial deposit beneath. The Lisheenavalla example follows this general pattern faithfully, though the site has not escaped damage. Quarrying activity has disturbed the monument from the north-east around to the east, and again at the north-west, gnawing away at the bank and fosse in those sections and leaving the surviving portions as a partial record of what was once a complete circuit.