It left no mark on any Ordnance Survey historic map, earned no monument or marker, and today the ground above it looks like any other stretch of Irish farmland. Yet the feature recorded as Site 2/23/1A is a genuine trace of domestic or working life, the kind of small, ordinary archaeology that rarely survives long enough to be noticed at all.

The site came to light not through deliberate historical investigation but through infrastructure. In 1986, excavations carried out ahead of the construction of the Bórd Gáis Éireann Curraleigh West-Limerick gas pipeline uncovered the hearth along with a series of post holes, the kind of evidence that typically points to a structure of some kind, whether a dwelling, a working shelter, or an enclosure. The work was conducted by Gowen, published in 1988. Some 235 metres to the west, a separate but associated complex was also identified: a ring-ditch, which is a roughly circular earthwork often associated with prehistoric burial or ritual activity, along with accompanying pits and a kiln. That cluster carries its own archaeological reference numbers, suggesting the area preserves more than one episode of past activity, though the precise relationship between the hearth and the western features has not been detailed in available records. The hearth itself has been fully excavated.

Because the site is not marked on any historic Ordnance Survey mapping and sits on private agricultural land, there is nothing to see at ground level and no public access point to speak of. It belongs to a category of place that is significant in the archaeological record but essentially invisible to the casual visitor. For those with an interest in pipeline archaeology or the quieter corners of the Irish Sites and Monuments Record, the wider Doonmoon area rewards attention for what it suggests about long-term, layered human presence in landscapes that now read as entirely unremarkable.