It measures roughly five metres across at its widest point, enclosed by a shallow surrounding ditch, and it is the kind of feature that disappears entirely against the general unevenness of a working field. What it represents, however, is a ring barrow, a form of prehistoric funerary monument in which a burial mound is encircled by a ditch, known as a fosse, sometimes with an accompanying outer bank. The fosse here is only about 0.4 metres deep, which gives some sense of how thoroughly time and agricultural use have worn the site down.

Ring barrows are found across Ireland and Britain and are generally associated with the Bronze Age, though the tradition of marking burial sites with earthen mounds stretches across several prehistoric periods. The Meelaherragh example is modest even by the standards of surviving ring barrows, and its condition reflects the pressures that centuries of farming have placed on such low-lying earthworks. A field fence running northeast to southwest has cut into the southwestern edge of the monument, truncating whatever original form it held on that side. What remains is an oval platform, slightly proud of the surrounding ground, with the fosse still just legible on the arc running from southwest around to northeast.