It measures around twenty metres on its northeast-to-southwest axis and twenty-five metres on its northwest-to-southeast axis, rising to about 0.9 metres at its highest point. That modest rise in the ground is, in fact, the accumulated debris of prehistoric cooking, or possibly bathing, or possibly some other communal activity that archaeologists are still not entirely agreed upon.

The mound belongs to a class of monument known as a fulacht fia, a type found in considerable numbers across Ireland, most commonly in low-lying or waterlogged ground. The standard interpretation is that these sites were used for outdoor cooking: a trough would be dug and filled with water, stones heated in a nearby fire would be dropped in to bring the water to boiling point, and food would be placed inside to cook. Over repeated use, the cracked and shattered heat-stones were raked out and piled to the side, which is precisely what those characteristic horseshoe or semi-circular mounds represent. The majority date to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some are earlier or later. The boggy, wet ground typical of fulacht fia locations was not incidental; proximity to a water source was essential to how these sites functioned.