That uncertainty is, in its own way, the most interesting thing about it. Measuring roughly eight metres across at its widest and six metres in the other direction, the sub-circular platform sits enclosed by a low narrow bank and the faintest trace of a fosse, a shallow ditch that in this case is only detectable from the south-west and west. It is the kind of place that rewards slow, patient looking rather than a quick glance from the road.

The difficulty lies in what the mound actually is. It was originally recorded as a motte castle, the type of earthwork introduced by the Normans from the twelfth century onwards, consisting of a raised earthen mound topped by a timber or stone tower. But the height here is simply too low to support that reading convincingly. The small diameter of the platform and the overall shape of the site point instead towards something older, possibly a barrow or burial mound of the kind raised by prehistoric communities to mark the dead. A barrow typically takes the form of a rounded earthen mound, sometimes covering a burial chamber, and they appear across Ireland in various forms from the Neolithic through to the early medieval period. Whether this example belongs to any of those traditions remains unresolved. About 200 metres to the south-west, a ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead common in early medieval Ireland, adds another layer of activity to what is clearly a landscape with a long history of use. The mound sits at the base of an east-facing slope on a prominent ridge, with open views to the north-west and south-east, a position that, whatever the monument's original purpose, was clearly not chosen without thought.