The only clue to its presence comes from local knowledge: when the field has been ploughed for tillage, a spread of burnt material rises briefly to the surface, then disappears again beneath the stubble.

The site is a fulacht fia, a type of monument found in considerable numbers across Ireland and dating primarily to the Bronze Age. The term refers to a mound formed from the accumulated debris of repeated episodes of fire-cracking stones. The typical method involved heating stones in a fire, dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to the boil, and using that heat for cooking or, as some researchers have proposed, for other purposes including bathing or textile processing. Over time, the shattered and discarded stones built up into the characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound that defines these sites. At Derryvillane, agricultural activity has flattened whatever mound may once have existed, leaving only the scorched and fragmented stone spread that periodically reappears when the plough cuts deep enough to disturb it.