This rugged landscape, measuring roughly 700 metres north to south and varying between 50 to 220 metres east to west, contains everything from ancient defensive earthworks to mysterious stone circles. The peninsula’s natural defences are enhanced by narrow isthmuses that create natural bottlenecks, with the southernmost featuring the remnants of a stone wall about 40 metres long. Historical records from 1654 mention a ‘Little Castle’ in this vicinity, though John O’Donovan described it in 1835 as a square castle of lime and stone; today, no trace of this structure remains visible.

The archaeological complexity of the site becomes apparent as you move across the peninsula. About 80 metres east of the entrance, a substantial earthen and stone bank runs for 105 metres alongside a defensive ditch, punctuated by a deliberate gap about four metres wide. Beyond this lies a fascinating array of structures: square enclosures built against the banks, mysterious lines of water-rolled beach stones forming geometric patterns, and what appear to be ancient hut sites with stone walls constructed using the distinctive technique of placing stones on edge with rubble fill. Further north, the peninsula narrows dramatically to another isthmus, where four massive earthen ramparts known locally as ‘Balor’s Fort’ create a formidable series of defences, complete with intervening ditches and a narrow causeway that tapers from five metres to just two metres wide.

The area protected by these impressive fortifications contains at least twenty surviving hut circles scattered across a gentle, south-facing slope. These structures, typically circular or oval with diameters up to ten metres, consist of substantial earth and stone banks up to three metres wide. Among them are three sites known locally as ‘Diarmuid and Grania’s’, which appear as circular depressions of uncertain archaeological significance. A rock-cut well near one of the huts suggests this was once a thriving settlement, whilst further east, the peninsula extends into an almost inaccessible rocky promontory called Tor-more. Here, a rock-cut ditch 1.5 metres deep guards access to a level area where a collapsed stone enclosure sits precariously on the cliff edge. All these structures appear to have been built directly on the island’s rocky surface, either before or during the early development of the island’s turf layer, creating an archaeological palimpsest that spans potentially thousands of years of human occupation on this remote Atlantic outpost.