What remains is still substantial: a front face roughly four and a quarter metres high and six metres wide, oriented towards the north-northwest, with a corbelled recess at its base where the burnt lime would once have been raked out. Corbelling, the technique of laying stones so that each course projects slightly beyond the one below, creates a self-supporting arch without mortar, and here it is capped by a lintel with sloping slabs behind it. The kiln's core is earthen, encased in random-rubble limestone walls, and at the top a slightly oval funnel, lined with limestone and measuring roughly two and a quarter metres east to west, is where the raw limestone and fuel would have been loaded.

Lime kilns were once a familiar feature of the Irish countryside, built to convert local limestone into quicklime by burning it at high temperatures. The resulting material was spread on fields to reduce soil acidity, used in mortars and plasters, and applied to the walls of farm buildings. This example at Tullig was constructed against a natural slope, a common approach that allowed carts or panniers loaded with stone and fuel to reach the top of the kiln without any ramp needing to be built. The woodland setting is now part of its character, though the trees would have come later; a working kiln required constant access and a reliable supply of both limestone and combustible material, and the surrounding land would have looked quite different during its operational life.