Whether the mound predates the fort, postdates it, or was raised in the same period of activity is a question the landscape does not readily answer, and that ambiguity is part of what makes the site quietly compelling.

The mound is a ring-barrow, a funerary monument type found across Ireland and Britain, typically consisting of a central mound encircled by a ditch and outer bank. Here the central mound is roughly thirty metres in diameter and rises only about half a metre to just under a metre in height, giving it a low, almost tentative profile against the hillside. A berm, a flat platform of ground between the mound and the surrounding earthworks, separates it from a slight outer bank that runs from the north around to the south-east. A later field bank, running north-west to south-east, cuts across and overlies the monument, which has not survived to the south-west of that intrusion. A second ring-barrow lies roughly twenty metres to the north-east, suggesting this part of the hill was a place of some significance over a long period. The relationship between the barrow and the hillfort perimeter remains the defining puzzle: the mound sits directly on the fort's outer line, which may mean it was incorporated into the fort's design, or that the hillfort was later laid out to encompass an already ancient burial.