Most barrows rise upward, their profiles asserting themselves against the sky. This one does the opposite: it dips inward. A pond barrow is defined by its hollow interior rather than a raised central mound, and the example at Dromavally preserves that inverted logic with quiet fidelity, a roughly circular depression cupped within a low enclosing bank, the whole thing measuring just over twenty-one metres across.

The enclosing bank itself is modest but consistent, ranging between 5.6 and 7.8 metres in width and standing, on average, 0.4 metres above the surrounding ground on the outside and 0.7 metres on the inside. Crucially, there is no trace of an internal or external ditch, which distinguishes it from ring barrows and other related monument types where a ditch typically provides the upcast material for the bank. The dished profile is what gives the pond barrow its name and its character. There is a possible gap of around six metres to the north-west, which might represent an original entrance to the enclosure, though it could equally be the result of the bank being gradually worn down by livestock over many centuries. That ambiguity is itself telling: even the clearest features of a monument like this carry a residue of uncertainty. The site was examined as part of Michael Connolly's doctoral research at University College Cork, published in 2008, which considered prehistoric settlement across the Lee Valley near Tralee in landscape terms rather than treating individual monuments in isolation.