The landscape around Gortaneden is scattered with rounded, drumlin-like humps, the kind of low swellings left behind by glacial activity thousands of years ago. But one mound among them holds itself differently, its western slope sharply defined where the others soften gradually into the surrounding terrain, its proportions a little too deliberate, its form a little too composed to be easily dismissed as mere geology.

The mound is sub-circular in plan, measuring roughly 28.4 metres north to south and approximately 30 metres east to west, and rising to a height of around 2.9 metres. Its flattened top, about 6 metres in diameter, is studded with stones of various sizes that protrude through the sod, though they form no recognisable structural arrangement. A massive boulder sits at the north-eastern end of the summit. The eastern slope bears a quarried-out section measuring 5 metres by 4 metres, and a smaller, shallower area of disturbance is visible on the southern slope, suggesting the site has attracted the attention of diggers at some point in the past, though the record does not say when or why. A field bank, about 1.65 metres wide and 0.7 metres high, abuts the base of the mound on its southern side. Whether the mound is entirely man-made or a natural feature that was deliberately shaped and augmented remains unresolved. Constructed mounds of this general type in Ireland range from prehistoric burial mounds to early medieval assembly places, but without excavation, Gortaneden keeps its purpose to itself.