It is the kind of monument that rewards a second look. At roughly 19.5 metres north to south and approximately 18 metres east to west, with a height of just over two metres, it is a substantial presence for such modest ground, the kind of structure that announces itself as deliberate and considered rather than accidental.

A cairn of this type, a carefully assembled mound of stones rather than earth, is generally associated with prehistoric funerary or ceremonial use, though the specific origins and purpose of this example are not fully recorded. What is documented is a large area of disturbance on the eastern side, the unmistakable sign of interference at some point after the cairn was first raised. Whether that disturbance was the work of early antiquarians probing for burial deposits, or simply the result of stones being taken away for local building purposes over the centuries, the eastern face of the monument now carries a visible scar. The cairn is noted in Killanin and Duignan's 1967 survey of County Galway, which places it in a county long recognised for its density of prehistoric field monuments.