Cairns of this kind are not burial monuments or markers of ritual significance; they are clearance cairns, meaning they are most likely the accumulated result of farmers picking stones from fields and piling them somewhere out of the way. That mundane origin makes them, in a certain light, more interesting than a decorated tomb. They are the residue of ordinary agricultural labour, preserved on a small island that was once a working place rather than a lonely one.

The broader settlement complex at Canroe is considerable for so modest a piece of land. Alongside the fifteen cairns, archaeologists have recorded eight houses, eight animal shelters, two poorly constructed ancillary structures, and an extensive network of fields and walls. An iron smelting site lies at the island's western end. The whole complex was investigated in the early 1950s by M. J. O'Kelly, whose excavations covered two houses, one animal shelter, and one of the cairns. That particular cairn, located roughly 55 metres northeast of one of the houses, measured 3.5 metres in diameter and half a metre in height. It was fully excavated and yielded no finds at all, which is consistent with the clearance interpretation but leaves the question of date and precise context open. Fourteen of the fifteen cairns are clustered on the eastern side of Canroe, with one positioned closer to the houses on the western slope. At certain low tides, a curving sandbar at the island's southeastern tip connects Beginish to the nearby Church Island, briefly stitching together two fragments of a landscape that was once far more inhabited than it appears today.