The mound is modest, roughly six metres long and less than two wide, rising only half a metre from the surrounding pasture. But it carries a name. Local tradition holds that it is a grave, known as 'Máire's Sow Mhór', a phrase whose precise meaning and origin remain unclear. The name was recorded in 2016 from a local resident, Seán Gilvarry of Rathroe, and no further explanation of who Máire was, or what connection the name has to the place, appears to survive.

The mound is predominantly earthen, though small and medium-sized stones protrude through the sod, suggesting something more structured beneath the surface. The flat-topped boulder placed at its northern end adds to the sense of deliberate marking, the kind of gesture associated with burial or commemoration across many periods of Irish prehistory. Whether the monument dates to the early medieval period, earlier prehistoric times, or something else entirely is unknown. What is clear is that it sits within a landscape already dense with human activity. A rath, the circular earthwork enclosure associated with early medieval settlement, lies roughly two hundred metres to the north-northwest. A tower house, the compact defensive structure common across late medieval Ireland, stands around a hundred and sixty metres to the northeast. Six metres to the south, a low subrectangular mound has been identified as a possible burial ground in its own right. The hilltop, in other words, was not chosen at random.

The monument sits close to the break of slope on the northern side of the hill, where the ground begins to fall away towards the valley of the Rathroe River. From this position, the views stretch northwest to southeast along the valley, and to the south, Nephin Mountain fills the horizon, a peak that rises in isolation above the bogland of north Mayo. Whether the placement was chosen for its visibility, or for its views, or for some other reason entirely, is another question the site does not answer.