The whole system stretches roughly 500 metres on a northeast to southwest axis and about 140 metres across, and embedded within it are three cairns, stone mounds of the kind typically associated with burial or ritual, as well as a small enclosure. It is the kind of landscape feature that is easy to overlook from the ground, where individual walls might seem like nothing more than collapsed boundary stones, but viewed from above the underlying order becomes apparent.

What makes the site particularly interesting is its relationship to a much larger agricultural landscape. The Coolnatullagh system is not an isolated fragment but part of an extensive field network that runs across the terrain from Gortaclare to Slievecarran, suggesting organised, large-scale land use at some point in the distant past. One of the three cairns within the system was excavated by Eogan in 2002, which places at least some of its components within the reach of modern archaeological inquiry, though the broader field network remains a largely open question. The presence of cairns within a working field system is itself notable; it implies either that the fields were laid out around pre-existing monuments, or that the two uses of the land, agricultural and commemorative, were not considered incompatible by the people who shaped this valley.