A fulacht fia is, in essence, a Bronze Age outdoor cooking site: a trough dug into the ground, filled with water, and heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into it until the water boiled. The broken, heat-shattered stones were then piled to one side, building up over repeated use into the low, horseshoe-shaped mounds that survive in their thousands across the Irish countryside. This particular example sat undisturbed beneath a spread of charcoal-enriched soil, roughly seven metres by five, before it was excavated.

The excavation took place in 1999, ahead of the construction of the N8 Glanmire-Watergrasshill Bypass, which brought a number of archaeological sites to light along its route. Once opened up, this fulacht fia revealed an irregular mound of heat-shattered stones measuring 5.5 metres north to south and 3.5 metres east to west, roughly half a metre deep. Beneath that mound was an oval pit, about 2.3 metres by 1.6 metres and 0.35 metres deep, filled with more shattered stones, some silt, and patches of white clay. A second, smaller pit lay three metres to the north, shallower and containing loamy soil with some burnt stones. The site does not sit in isolation: two further fulachtaí fia were identified close by, one roughly fifteen metres to the south-west and another about thirty metres to the north-east, suggesting this stretch of ground near the stream was used repeatedly, and perhaps by more than one generation of people going about the same practical work.