The mound is only half a metre high, but its horseshoe shape, characteristic of fulachtaí fia, is clearly legible in the pasture. A fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking site, typically consisting of a trough dug into the ground and a surrounding mound of fire-cracked stones discarded after use. Heating rocks in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough was an efficient, if labour-intensive, way of bringing large quantities of liquid to the boil without a vessel that could sit directly over a flame.

This particular example measures roughly eleven metres north to south and just over ten and a half metres east to west. Its narrow opening, less than a metre wide at the front, faces north and fans out to more than seven metres towards the rear, giving the mound its distinctive horseshoe outline. What makes the site at Doonasleen especially interesting is its context: at least three other possible fulachtaí fia lie within 170 metres of it, one to the east-southeast and a cluster to the west. Whether they represent repeated use of a favoured locality over generations, or a period of more intensive activity, is difficult to say without excavation, but the concentration is notable. Fulachtaí fia are among the most common prehistoric monument types in Ireland, and Cork has an unusually high density of them, yet clusters like this invite questions about how and why particular patches of landscape were returned to again and again.