It measures roughly thirty metres from east to west and just under twenty metres from north to south, rising to a height of about two and a half metres. Those are substantial dimensions for something that has attracted so little documented attention, and the combination of running water to the south and boggy ground to the north suggests the mound was deliberately placed in a location where natural drainage features would define or defend its edges.

Mounds of this kind appear throughout Ireland in a range of contexts. Some are natural glacial features that were later adapted or built upon; others are early medieval burial mounds; others still are the remains of ringforts or platform structures associated with settlement. The townland name Gortateeboy, from the Irish meaning something close to a yellow or bright field, offers no obvious clue as to what this particular feature was for. Without excavation, the mound at Gortateeboy remains one of many unclassified earthworks scattered across the Cork countryside, noted, measured, and left open to interpretation.