It is not a dramatic megalith by the standards of more celebrated prehistoric monuments, but there is something quietly precise about its placement: oriented east to west, angled so that its eastern face rises almost vertically before tapering to a point, while its western side leans away gradually from the base like the prow of something very slow-moving.

Standing stones, sometimes called galláin in Irish, are among the most common and least understood prehistoric monuments on the island. They were erected during the Bronze Age, roughly between 2500 and 500 BC, though the purpose of any individual stone is rarely clear. Some appear to mark boundaries or routeways, others may be associated with burial, and a number seem to have been positioned with deliberate astronomical or landscape alignments in mind. The stone at Boulerdah stands 1.85 metres high and measures 1.49 metres across at its base, with a depth of just 0.22 metres, giving it a blade-like profile. At the base, packing stones are still visible, wedged in around the foot of the stone to secure it in the boggy ground, a small but telling detail about the care taken by whoever raised it. The view it commands to the south-west, along the Ferta river valley on the Iveragh Peninsula, suggests the siting was intentional rather than incidental.