What makes this structure unusual is not simply its age but its condition: it is considered one of the best-preserved examples of its type on the western coast of Ireland, surviving to its full original height at a time when comparable structures along the same chain have been reduced to barely legible outlines in the ground.

The tower was built between approximately 1804 and 1806 by the British Board of Ordnance, as part of a network of over eighty signal stations constructed along the Irish coastline in response to the threat of a French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. The system ran in a continuous chain clockwise from Dublin Bay all the way to Malin Head in County Donegal, with signalling between stations carried out using a naval signal post. By the mid-1810s, as the threat receded, the network was abandoned. The Gólam tower's entry was positioned at first-floor level, accessible only by a retractable ladder, a deliberate defensive arrangement. Above the doorway, a rectangular machicolation, a projecting gallery through which objects or liquids could be dropped on anyone attempting to force entry, is supported on three cut limestone corbels. Inside, the wooden floors and roof are long gone, though rows of joist holes mark where they once sat; shallow fireplaces and alcoved recesses line the interior walls, still coated in smooth lime render, and the impression of five shelves survives in the plasterwork of the first-floor alcoves. A square drainage channel in the north corner is thought to have fed rainwater from the roof down to storage barrels in the semi-basement below. On clear days, the signal tower on Inishmore is visible 12.5 kilometres to the south-south-east, a reminder of how precisely this chain of watchtowers was positioned to maintain unbroken lines of sight along the coast.

The islet sits close to the shoreline at its nearest point, about 80 metres inland from the sea, surrounded by small irregular fields divided by low drystone walls. Roughly 180 metres to the east lies Tobar Cholmcille, a holy well bearing the name of the early medieval saint Colmcille, placing the Napoleonic tower in unexpectedly ancient company on this exposed western headland.