The mound measures eleven metres long, nine metres wide, and rises only a metre from the ground, its opening facing west. It is a fulacht fia, a type of site found in considerable numbers across Ireland and interpreted by most archaeologists as a Bronze Age cooking place, though some scholars have argued they may also have served for bathing, brewing, or textile processing. The characteristic shape comes from the gradual accumulation of fire-cracked stone and charcoal, discarded after repeated cycles of heating rocks and plunging them into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil.

These sites typically cluster near water sources, and the Bawnmore example follows that pattern precisely, with a well noted to the north-west of the mound. That proximity was not incidental. A reliable water source was as essential to the process as the fire itself, and the landscape around mid Cork, with its wet lowlands and abundant surface water, proved hospitable to this kind of repeated, seasonal activity over many centuries. Fulachtaí fia are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, yet each one represents a particular community's relationship with a specific patch of ground, chosen and returned to for reasons that made obvious practical sense at the time.