These kilns were used to burn and process harvested seaweed, reducing it to a glassy, alkaline residue known as kelp, which was sold for use in the manufacture of glass and soap, and later as a source of iodine. The work was seasonal, back-breaking, and almost entirely carried out by coastal communities who had few other reliable sources of income.

The kelp industry along the west of Ireland reached its height during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when demand from British and European manufacturers made seaweed a surprisingly valuable commodity. Families would cut and dry the weed on the shoreline before burning it in long, stone-lined troughs, tending fires that could smoulder for many hours. The collapse of the industry came swiftly after cheaper sources of the relevant chemicals were found elsewhere, leaving these stone structures behind as the only physical trace of the trade. The kiln at An Máimín is one of a scattered number of such remains that survive along the Connemara and south Galway coastline, places where the sea was not just a backdrop but an economic resource worked with considerable effort and relatively little reward.