This is a fulacht fia, a type of monument found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone and charred soil arranged around a trough. The standard interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled pit to bring it to the boil, a method that works surprisingly efficiently. What makes this particular example worth noting is the quality of its preservation: the mound retains a clear form, measuring roughly 11.6 metres east to west and 11.4 metres north to south, rising to about 0.6 metres in height, with the open end of the horseshoe facing north.

The site sits in low-lying, waterlogged ground approximately 15 metres south-east of a stream, which is entirely typical of the type. Fulachtaí fia are almost always found close to water, whether streams, bogs, or natural hollows that would have held standing water, and the marshy conditions that made them practical also helped preserve them through the centuries. The scorched soil and heat-shattered stone visible here are the direct residue of that repeated heating process, accumulated over what may have been generations of use during the Bronze Age. A second burnt mound lies roughly 255 metres to the north-east, suggesting that this stretch of the Galway landscape saw sustained and repeated activity rather than a single isolated episode.