It measures about eight metres across and rises only half a metre from the surrounding ground, its horseshoe shape opening to the northeast at nearly six metres wide. To a passing eye it might read as a natural undulation, a trick of the terrain. It is, in fact, the remains of a fulacht fia, one of the most common yet least understood monument types in the Irish landscape.

A fulacht fia is essentially a prehistoric cooking site, typically Bronze Age in date, consisting of a trough dug into the ground and a mound of the shattered, fire-cracked stones that accumulated beside it over repeated use. The method involved heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil, a process efficient enough to cook large quantities of meat. The characteristic horseshoe or kidney shape of the surrounding mound results from this repeated cycle of heating, cracking, and discarding. The proximity to water, here the nearby stream, is entirely typical; a reliable water source was essential to the whole operation. Ireland contains thousands of these sites, concentrated in low-lying and marshy ground, and Cork is particularly well represented among them.