This is a boulder-burial, a monument type found predominantly in the southwest of Ireland, in which a substantial capstone is propped on a small number of low supporters rather than set within a mound or enclosed chamber. The effect is oddly minimal, even intimate, compared with the grander drama of a passage tomb or a dolmen.

The slab itself measures three metres by two metres and sits roughly sixty centimetres above the ground, figures recorded by the archaeologist Seán Ó Nualláin in 1978. Boulder-burials are generally understood to date to the Bronze Age, and while they share a superficial resemblance with portal tombs, they are considered a distinct regional tradition, concentrated in Cork and Kerry. Their exact ritual function remains a matter of some discussion, though the name assumes a funerary purpose. What is notable about the Lissarourke example is its setting on level ground within ordinary farmland, which gives it a quietly incongruous quality, a prehistoric arrangement that has simply persisted while the landscape around it was given over to grazing.