Four of those stones are placed radially, that is, radiating outward from a central point like the spokes of a wheel, a configuration that belongs to a specific and relatively rare prehistoric monument type known as a radial-stone cairn. The mound itself is modest, roughly six metres across, and its outline is indistinct enough that a casual observer might walk past it without a second glance. The stones range in height from around thirty to sixty centimetres, unspectacular individually, but purposeful in their arrangement.

What makes the site especially interesting is its company. Around twenty metres to the south-east lies a boulder-burial, a monument type in which a large, often glacially deposited boulder is set over a small number of supporting stones, typically believed to mark a prehistoric interment. The pairing of a radial-stone cairn and a boulder-burial in such close proximity is not accidental; the clustering of different funerary or ritual monument types on elevated ground is a pattern seen elsewhere in Munster prehistory, suggesting these hilltop locations held particular significance over long periods. The site at Cloghmacow was catalogued by Seán Ó Nualláin in his 1984 survey of stone circles and related monuments, where it appears as number eleven in his corpus of Cork examples.