Yet this small earthwork near Moyode in County Galway is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, and this particular example has survived in remarkably good condition beneath its grass covering.

Fulachtaí fia, the plural form, are typically interpreted as outdoor cooking sites, probably Bronze Age in origin, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The characteristic horseshoe or crescent shape of the surrounding mound is formed by the gradual accumulation of those same stones once they had cracked and become useless from repeated heating and cooling. The Moyode example, as recorded by Cody in 1989, measures roughly seven metres north to south and six metres east to west, with the open end of the crescent facing west. A natural rock outcrop at the southern end appears to have been absorbed into the structure as the mound grew with continued use, a detail that gives some sense of the site as a working place rather than a monument built to a fixed plan. The low-lying pasture around it is prone to seasonal flooding from a turlough, one of the intermittent limestone lakes particular to the west of Ireland, located about fifty metres to the south. That proximity to water was almost certainly a practical consideration for whoever used the site. A separate burnt mound lies roughly fifty-five metres to the north-west, suggesting this corner of Galway saw repeated activity of this kind over time.