The row runs roughly east-north-east to west-south-west across a stretch of rough pasture, and the stones are graduated in height: the tallest, at the ENE end, rises to 2.4 metres, while the smallest, at the WSW end, stands just 1.4 metres. That graduation is not accidental, and it is a pattern found repeatedly in the stone rows of Cork and Kerry, though nobody has settled on a definitive explanation for it.

Excavation added a further complication. Beneath the soil to the east of the existing three stones, archaeologists found the socket of a fourth stone, now long gone, suggesting the row was originally longer. Stratigraphic evidence, meaning the layering of deposits in the ground, also indicates that this row predates the five-stone circle sitting roughly a metre to its north, by some centuries. Five-stone circles are a monument type particular to the Cork and Kerry region, small rings with a distinctive recumbent stone laid flat between two tall portal stones, and it is unusual to be able to establish a clear sequence between a row and a nearby circle at the same site. The excavation results were published by Lynch in 1981. The surrounding landscape is dense with prehistoric activity: a multiple-stone circle lies about 80 metres to the west, a fulacht fia (a type of Bronze Age cooking site, typically identified by a mound of fire-cracked stone near a water source) sits roughly 50 metres to the south-east, and relict field boundaries from an earlier agricultural system survive immediately to the west and south. A medieval road runs along the terrace above the site, adding yet another layer to the accumulated human use of this hillside over several thousand years.