It measures only 2.7 metres from end to end and rises barely 0.6 metres above the surrounding land, yet its kerb of upright stone slabs, two of them tilting gently outward on the south-west side and two more lying flat against the western end, gives it a deliberate, constructed quality that distinguishes it from any natural feature of the landscape. The local name for it is straightforward: The Frenchman's Grave.

The tradition attached to this mound connects it to one of the most dramatic episodes in late eighteenth-century Irish history. In August 1798, a French expeditionary force under General Jean Humbert landed at Killala Bay in County Mayo in support of the United Irishmen's rebellion. The force, numbering around a thousand soldiers, marched inland and won a remarkable victory over Crown forces at Castlebar before being overwhelmed at Ballinamuck in County Longford the following month. The campaign was brief and ultimately unsuccessful, but it left a deep impression on the landscape and the memory of the region. Soldiers who died along the route of march were buried where they fell, and the country around north Mayo retains traces of that passage in place names and local oral tradition. This modest mound, with its kerbed slabs and its sod-covered stones, is said to mark the resting place of one of those French soldiers, a man whose name, rank, and precise circumstances of death have not been recorded.