The island itself is a crannog, a type of man-made or partly man-made lake dwelling constructed during the early medieval period in Ireland, though some examples were used well into the seventeenth century. What makes this one quietly arresting is not just its age but the physical evidence it still offers to anyone who looks closely enough, centuries after it was last inhabited.

The island is roughly circular, measuring approximately 27.5 metres across on its north-to-south axis, with a raised centre that slopes gradually downward toward the surrounding water before dropping sharply at the edge to a depth of around two metres. When the site was inspected in 1988, timber stakes were still visible protruding from the stony rim just below the waterline, the remains of the structural framework that originally held the island together and defined its perimeter. These stakes, alongside the scatter of animal bone around the edges, suggest domestic activity of some kind, the ordinary residue of people who once kept and slaughtered animals here. The site appears on both the 1838 and 1916 Ordnance Survey six-inch maps, recorded simply as a small circular island, its artificial origins either unrecognised or unremarked at the time of mapping.

The crannog is now densely overgrown with bushes, reeds, and nettles, making close inspection difficult. A second crannog lies approximately 120 metres to the north-east, a reminder that these lake settlements were not always isolated outposts; in some areas they appear in clusters, perhaps reflecting the presence of related communities or successive occupation of the same stretch of water over generations.