It is a limekiln, a structure once commonplace across rural Ireland, and the fact that it warrants careful recording at all speaks to how thoroughly this particular kind of industrial vernacular has quietly disappeared from the landscape.

A limekiln was a working furnace, typically built into a hillside so that limestone and fuel could be loaded from above while the burnt lime was drawn out through a lower recess. The resulting quicklime was spread on fields to reduce soil acidity, and was also used in mortar and whitewash. This example, dating from the mid to late nineteenth century, is built of random rubble, meaning uncoursed, unshaped stone laid without the regularity of dressed masonry. It is roughly square in plan, measuring 3.5 metres on one axis and 3.4 metres on the other. The draw recess, the arched opening at the base through which lime was removed, faces south-east and measures about one metre high and 1.2 metres wide. Above it, the stone-lined funnel where the charge of limestone and fuel would have been loaded is 1.45 metres in diameter, though it is now partly filled with collapsed material. The whole structure has fallen in on itself, its purpose long since obsolete.