It is not a dramatic monument by any measure, rising to less than a metre at its highest point, but its setting and its neighbours make it quietly compelling. A few dozen metres to the west lies Poulagellane, a blow-hole, where the Atlantic forces air and water up through a shaft in the cliff rock with considerable noise and energy. The cairn, in other words, sits within earshot of something the landscape does on its own terms.

The structure is roughly oval in plan, measuring about 15.3 metres north to south and 13.5 metres east to west, and is largely built from medium-sized stones. Along its northern and north-western edges, four large slabs have been set upright to retain the cairn's bulk, each averaging around 1.35 metres tall and a quarter of a metre thick. These kerb-like slabs suggest some deliberate construction, though whether the cairn was raised over a burial or served another purpose is not recorded. Roughly 25 metres to the south lies a stretch of pre-bog walling, about 7 metres long, which predates the formation of the surrounding blanket peat. Pre-bog walls are a common but often overlooked feature of the Irish landscape; they represent traces of farming or settlement activity from a period before the peat began to accumulate, effectively sealing the evidence beneath it. That both the cairn and this wall fragment survive in the same locale suggests sustained human activity in this corner of the peninsula long before the bog drew over it.