It is, in fact, a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in great numbers across Ireland, typically dating to the Bronze Age. The mound is the accumulated debris of thousands of heating episodes: stones that were cracked and blackened by fire, used to boil water in a trough, then discarded in a crescent-shaped heap. Over centuries that heap becomes a permanent feature of the landscape, grass-covered and easy to mistake for a natural rise.

This particular mound sits on a gentle south-facing slope, at the point where the ground begins to steepen towards the north and west, a position that would have offered some shelter and reasonable drainage. It is oriented on a northeast to southwest axis, measuring roughly 12.6 metres along that line and 7.4 metres across. At its highest point, near the southeastern end, it reaches about two metres, before sloping down to the southwest where it merges gradually into the natural hillside. The site was noted on Tim Robinson's map of the area, published in 1997, placing it within that meticulous cartographic record of landscape features that Robinson devoted much of his working life to producing across the west of Ireland.