The site takes the form of a low, horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone, the classic signature of these ancient cooking, or possibly bathing, sites. The mound measures roughly 7.5 metres by 7.2 metres and rises only about 0.4 metres above the surrounding ground, its opening, some 3 metres wide, facing south. That opening would originally have looked onto a trough, likely timber-lined or cut into the earth, into which stones heated in fire were dropped to boil water. Over time the cracked, fire-blackened stones were raked out and piled up, forming the characteristic horseshoe shape visible today.

What makes Barleyhill slightly more interesting than a lone example is that a second fulacht fia lies approximately 20 metres to the south. The proximity of two such sites raises questions that no one has yet answered with confidence. Were they used simultaneously by different groups, or at different periods? Did one fall out of use and prompt the establishment of another nearby? The Bronze Age broadly spans from around 2500 to 500 BC, and fulachtaí fia are most commonly associated with the middle part of that period, though exact dating varies considerably from site to site. Both mounds currently sit in rough grazing land, overgrown and unexcavated, holding whatever information they contain about fuel sources, water management, and the daily routines of people who left almost no other trace at this particular spot.