It measures just over ten metres north to south and stands less than a metre high, but its contents tell a more interesting story: the mound is composed almost entirely of heat-shattered stones and charcoal-enriched soil, the accumulated debris of repeated prehistoric cooking.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, particularly in Cork and Kerry. The basic principle involves heating stones in a fire, dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil, and using that heat to cook meat or, as some researchers now argue, to brew ale or process hides. The stones crack and splinter with repeated heating and cooling, becoming useless, and are tossed aside to form exactly the kind of crescent or kidney-shaped mound visible here. The two-metre-wide opening in this mound faces west, towards a marshy area, which is characteristic: fulachtaí fia are almost always found close to a reliable water source, and boggy ground served that purpose well. A network of ancient field boundaries sits roughly twenty metres to the north and east, suggesting that this small patch of hillside was once a more organised and inhabited landscape than the rough grazing it has become.