Irregular in outline and modest in scale, measuring roughly 15.5 metres north to south, 11.5 metres east to west, and standing just a metre in height, it is the kind of feature that could easily be passed over as a natural rise in the land.

What complicates that reading are two details at either end of the mound. At its northern end there are possible traces of a circular foundation, the sort of feature associated with a ringfort, an enclosed settlement type common across early medieval Ireland, typically defined by one or more earthen or stone banks enclosing a farmstead. At the south-eastern end, a pit has been interpreted as evidence of quarrying, which would account for much of the disturbance. J. Cuppage, writing in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region, catalogued the site and acknowledged the possibility that it represents the heavily disturbed remains of just such a monument. The local name An Gabhlán Ard, and the oral tradition that associates the site with a fort, suggest the place held some significance in local knowledge long before anyone thought to measure it.