The cairn is roughly circular, measuring around eight metres east to west and just under eight metres north to south, and what survives is a raised plinth of stone with possible kerbs, the low edging stones that would once have defined its outer boundary, still visible to the south-east. There may also be an opening in the north-west, suggesting this was once a more structured monument than its current collapsed state implies.

Cairns of this kind are prehistoric burial or ceremonial mounds, typically raised over human remains and sometimes containing a stone-lined chamber within. This one sits within what is described as an extensive multiperiod field system, meaning the surrounding landscape carries traces of human activity from several different eras layered on top of one another. Sometime after the cairn's original construction, someone built a stone shelter into its north-north-eastern edge, reusing the ancient monument as ready-cut building material or simply as a convenient windbreak. That kind of opportunistic repurposing is common in Ireland, where the boundaries between prehistoric, early medieval, and later rural structures often blur into one another. Adding to the density of occupation in this small area, a cashel, a roughly circular stone enclosure of the early medieval period, sits approximately fifty-five metres to the north-north-east, overlooking the same north-western views that would have made this terrace an attractive place to settle or to bury the dead across many centuries.