Measuring roughly 1.80 metres by 1.60 metres and only about half a metre high, the stone lies in the north-western quadrant of the circle, and no support-stones are visible beneath it. That absence is part of what makes boulder-burials a quietly puzzling category of monument. In a more typical example, a substantial capstone rests on smaller upright or packing stones, sheltering a small chamber that sometimes contains cremated remains. Here, if the boulder is indeed a cover-stone, whatever once supported it has either sunk, shifted, or was never recorded.

What sharpens the interest at Gorteanish is the arrangement of the site as a whole. The boulder sits inside a multiple-stone circle, a type of monument associated with the Bronze Age in the south of Ireland, and a second boulder-burial stands just six metres to the south, placed immediately outside the circle's boundary. The pairing of the two, one folded into the ceremonial space of the circle and one placed just beyond its edge, suggests a deliberate relationship between the structures, though whether they were contemporary or whether one preceded the other is not recorded. Bronze Age communities in Munster clearly regarded these circular enclosures of upright stones as significant enough to bury their dead beside, and sometimes within, them. The exact nature of that significance remains an open question.