It measures fourteen metres long, nineteen metres wide, and barely forty centimetres high, which is to say it is easy to mistake for a natural rise in the ground. It is not. This is a fulacht fia, the remains of a prehistoric cooking site, and the mound itself is made almost entirely of fire-cracked stone and charcoal, the accumulated debris of repeated use over what may have been centuries.

Fulachtaí fia (the plural form) are among the most common archaeological monument types in Ireland, yet they remain poorly understood in certain respects. The basic method they represent is well established: stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough, bringing it to a boil quickly and efficiently. Meat could be cooked this way, and some researchers have proposed other uses, including the brewing of ale or the processing of hides. The spent, shattered stones were discarded to the side, building up over time into the characteristic horseshoe-shaped or oval mound that survives today. The Berrings example follows this pattern, positioned close to a water source in low-lying ground, which is typical of the monument type across Ireland and Britain.