It is made not of earth or stone but of burnt material, the blackened, fire-cracked debris that is the unmistakable signature of a fulacht fia.

A fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically Bronze Age in date. The usual interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough, bringing the water to a boil quickly enough to cook meat. Over time, the shattered and discarded stones accumulated into the characteristic horseshoe-shaped or oval mound that survives long after the timber trough and the fire itself have vanished. The example at Berrings is modest even by these standards, its half-metre height suggesting either a relatively brief period of use or the effects of centuries of gradual dispersal across the grazing land around it.