The burnt material that marks the spot was incorporated into the fence itself, which now bisects the spread of charred stone and earth on a roughly north-northeast to south-southwest line.

The site is a fulacht fia, a type of monument found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically dating to the Bronze Age. The name, loosely translated from Irish, refers to a burnt or roasting place, and the physical signature of these sites is always the same: a mound or spread of fire-cracked stone, charcoal, and dark soil left behind after repeated use of a trough-based cooking method. Water would be heated by dropping stones, fired until they fractured, directly into a water-filled pit. The discarded, shattered stones accumulated over time into the characteristic spread that survives today. At Skenakilla, that spread is notably uneven in its distribution across the fence line: local knowledge puts it at roughly thirty metres on the western side and only about ten metres on the eastern side, suggesting either that the activity was concentrated to the west, or that more material has been lost or disturbed on the eastern portion. The site lies in tillage ground, approximately thirty metres northwest of a pond, a proximity that is entirely typical, since a reliable water source was a practical necessity for any fulacht fia.