It measures roughly 22 metres east to west and 15 metres north to south, rising only about 60 centimetres at its highest point, and its modest profile conceals what it actually is: the remains of a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site found in large numbers across Ireland and Britain. The characteristic form is a horseshoe or semicircular mound of fire-cracked stones, built up over time as heated rocks were discarded after being dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. Thousands of these sites survive, mostly dating from the Bronze Age, and they tend to cluster near water, which is precisely where this one sits.

The mound at Bettyville has a depression on its southern side, possibly marking the original trough or pit where the water would have been heated. A drain cut parallel to the stream has sliced through the southern edge at some point, disturbing that portion of the deposit. The site may well be the same fulacht fiadh noted by a researcher named Bowman in 1934, recorded then as lying on land belonging to a D. Guiney. The match of location and description makes the identification plausible, though not certain. What the 1934 record confirms, at least, is that the mound was recognisable and noteworthy long before modern archaeological survey caught up with it.