Cairns of this kind are essentially stone mounds, built up over centuries to mark a summit, commemorate the dead, or signal something significant about a place in the landscape. This one is considerable in scale, measuring 32 metres north to south, 27 metres east to west, and standing 3.35 metres above the surrounding ground level, making it one of the more substantial examples in the region.

The cairn's centre has been robbed out to a depth of around 2.5 metres, the result of people removing stone for other purposes over a long period, a fate common to many upland cairns across Ireland. More recently, someone has put that hollow to practical use, constructing a dry-stone shelter within it. Three small cairns have also been added along the northern edge of the mound, modest additions that continue a tradition of summit marking that presumably stretches back to whoever built the original structure. To the east, from this vantage point, a second cairn on the summit of Sugarloaf Hill is clearly visible, suggesting that these two high points were understood as connected or corresponding in some deliberate way by the people who shaped this landscape.