It is horseshoe-shaped, roughly twelve metres by ten, and rises only sixty centimetres from the surrounding ground. The westward-facing opening, some four metres wide, gives it the appearance of an incomplete ring. To a passing eye it might register as a natural rise in the land, but the burnt material that makes up its bulk tells a different story.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in large numbers across Ireland, particularly in low-lying, waterlogged ground near streams or springs. The standard interpretation is that water was heated in a trough by dropping fire-heated stones into it, the stones shattering and discolouring in the process. Over time, the discarded burnt stone accumulates into the characteristic horseshoe mound that survives to this day. They are among the most common archaeological monuments in the Irish landscape, yet their sheer ordinariness tends to work against them; they rarely attract the attention given to more visually dramatic sites. The Gooseberryhill example follows the classic form closely, with its proximity to running water being a functional necessity rather than a coincidence of survival.