These sites, found in their thousands across the country, are essentially ancient cooking places, typically Bronze Age in date, where stones were heated in fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The burnt and shattered stones, discarded after repeated heating and cooling, accumulate into a distinctive mound, usually horseshoe-shaped, that can persist in the ground for three or four thousand years.

The Newcastle site survives as a scatter of this characteristic burnt material, identified during agricultural activity on the land. Its position beside a stream is entirely typical of the type; proximity to a reliable water source was a practical necessity, and fulachtaí fia cluster along watercourses and in low-lying, often marshy ground throughout Cork and beyond. What was actually being cooked, or whether cooking was even the primary purpose, has been debated for decades. Experiments have demonstrated that the method works efficiently for boiling large joints of meat, but proposals have also included brewing, textile processing, and bathing. The honest answer is that no single explanation has settled the question.