It measures roughly 22 metres across and rises about a metre and a half above the surrounding ground, overgrown now and offering nothing obvious to the eye. No stonework protrudes, no timbers are visible. Yet the soil within it holds ash and charcoal, the quiet chemical signature of human occupation, suggesting this is a crannog, an artificial or semi-artificial island constructed in a lake, typically during the early medieval period, and used as a defended homestead or place of refuge.

The lough itself has changed considerably since it was recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1834. At that time it appeared as a roughly rectangular water body, running approximately 420 metres on its longer northwest to southeast axis and around 180 metres across, with a separate arm extending eastward from its southern end for some 500 metres. That eastern arm has since almost entirely dried up. The western portion of the main body has itself become constricted, nearly dividing into two separate pools at precisely the point where the crannog sits. The lake, in other words, has been retreating around a structure that was built to sit within water, and the island that was once surrounded is now simply a mound in damp ground.