They are not the ruins of a building, nor the remnants of a defended enclosure. They are field boundaries, the kind of mundane agricultural infrastructure that once divided worked land, now swallowed almost entirely by bog growth that has been accumulating for centuries.

The three walls run roughly parallel to one another, and what little is visible of them tells an uneven story of preservation. The easternmost is the most substantial, running northeast to southwest for 44 metres and built largely from large boulders. Immediately to its west lies a second stretch, 37 metres long, though peat covers most of it along its length and its southwestern end disappears into a face of peat roughly 0.6 metres high. The third wall is the most obscured of all, with only 4 metres of its extent exposed at the surface. These are intra-peat walls, meaning they were built on a surface that has since been buried by the upward growth of the bog. Blanket bog of this kind forms in wet, cool conditions over thousands of years, and it preserves organic and structural material with remarkable fidelity, sealing walls, timbers, and even ancient field systems beneath its layers. The walls at Emlaghpeastia almost certainly predate the bog that now covers them, though the precise period of their construction is not recorded.

The site sits in an area of extensive blanket bog with views toward the Portmagee Channel, the narrow strait that separates the Iveragh mainland from Valentia Island. The landscape is open and largely featureless at ground level, which makes the exposed boulders of the eastern wall all the more arresting when encountered. Most of what lies here is hidden, and the exposed sections serve mainly as evidence of how much more remains out of sight.