It measures roughly 21.5 metres east to west and 15 metres north to south, with a maximum height of 1.3 metres, its western end noticeably higher than the eastern. That slight asymmetry, combined with the burnt material found only in the western portion, is what gives it away as something older and stranger than a simple earthwork.

The mound is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, with County Cork alone holding thousands of recorded examples. The typical interpretation is that a trough was dug into the ground, lined to hold water, and heated stones were dropped in to bring the water to a boil. The shattered, fire-cracked stones that accumulated over repeated use formed the characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound that survives to this day. The burnt material noted at the western end of this particular mound is consistent with that pattern of use, suggesting the heat source and the debris from it were concentrated in one area, while the lower eastern end may have served a different function or simply accumulated less material over time. Most fulachtaí fia date to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some sites show evidence of use across a much longer span.