By 1975, local activity had levelled it, but before that it registered on a 1936 Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a large oval feature, measuring roughly thirty metres east to west and twenty-two metres north to south, its undulating surface composed of burnt material, grass-covered but unmistakably artificial.

What the mound represents is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically located near water and on low-lying or boggy ground. The standard interpretation is that these sites were used to heat water by fire-cracking stones, then dropping the hot stones into a water-filled trough; the discarded, shattered stones accumulated over time into the characteristic horseshoe-shaped or oval mounds that survive today. The burnt and fire-cracked stone that makes up their bulk is the defining material signature. What makes the Gooseberryhill example particularly worth noting is not any single feature of the site itself, but its context: it sits within a cluster of six such monuments in close proximity, a concentration that suggests sustained or repeated activity in this part of north Cork across a considerable stretch of prehistoric time.