The structure is a leacht, a type of commemorative cairn or grave monument associated with early Irish monasticism, typically built to honour a founding saint or significant holy figure. This one is modest in scale, rising just 0.65 metres from the ground, its stepped form measuring 3.3 metres north to south and 3 metres east to west, the kind of thing that could be passed without a second glance by anyone unfamiliar with what they were looking at.

The site on Church Island is reputed, according to Lynch writing in 1908, to mark the grave of St Finan, an early Christian figure associated with the monastic tradition that once animated these Kerry islands and inlets. The Iveragh coastline was particularly fertile ground for early medieval monasticism, with small island communities establishing oratories, grave plots, and enclosures that now survive in varying states of preservation. The leacht form itself belongs to this world: a deliberate, structured monument intended to localise the memory of a holy person and to serve as a focus for prayer and veneration. The upright retaining slabs give the mound a purposeful, almost architectural quality, distinguishing it from natural accumulations of stone and signalling that what lies within, or beneath, was considered worth marking with some care.