It sits in the northeastern corner of the field, slightly elevated and noticeably drier than the surrounding land, which slopes gradually southward. Just beneath the surface, two small patches of material tell a different story: charcoal-rich soil mixed with stones that have been repeatedly cracked and discoloured by heat.

This is a burnt mound, a type of site found widely across Ireland and Britain, generally associated with the Bronze Age. The prevailing interpretation is that such mounds accumulated through a process of heating stones in a fire, dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it rapidly to the boil, and then discarding the spent, shattered stones into a pile nearby. Over time, these discarded stones and the dark, ashy soil between them built up into the low, kidney-shaped or oval mounds that survive today. Whether the activity involved cooking, bathing, textile processing, or something else entirely is still debated, though the physical evidence, burnt stone and charcoal, is consistent across hundreds of examples. The Mountcatherine site measures approximately 30 metres east to west and 25 metres north to south, which places it at a reasonable size for this type of monument. It came to attention during afforestation work in the area, though the planting activity does not appear to have disturbed the archaeology beneath.