It measures roughly nine metres long, ten and a half metres wide, and stands three metres high, an unassuming hump in the landscape that most people would walk past without a second thought. What it actually represents is one of the most common yet still debated monument types in the Irish archaeological record.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, with particularly dense concentrations in Munster. The basic principle is well understood: a trough, usually timber-lined or stone-lined, was filled with water and heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into it until the water boiled. The cracked and shattered stones, discarded after use, accumulated over time into the characteristic horseshoe-shaped or oval mound that survives today. The Berrings example follows this pattern closely, sitting on the south bank of a stream as these monuments typically do, since a reliable water source was essential to the whole operation. Dating for fulachta fia generally falls within the Bronze Age, roughly 2000 to 500 BC, though some examples have produced dates outside that range. What was actually being cooked, or whether cooking was even the primary purpose, remains a matter of ongoing archaeological discussion, with proposals ranging from the preparation of food and the brewing of ale to hide-working and bathing.