This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in extraordinary numbers across Ireland, and one of the more unassuming yet archaeologically fascinating features a person might walk past without a second glance.

A fulacht fia typically consists of a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone accumulated around a trough, usually timber-lined, into which water was poured and heated by dropping in stones from a nearby fire. The stones, having been superheated and then plunged into water, fracture and become useless for reheating, so they were discarded to the sides, building up over time into the distinctive spread of burnt material that characterises these sites. They date predominantly from the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some have produced earlier or later dates. The note that the field runs damp to the east of this site is no small detail; fulachtaí fia are almost always found near a reliable water source, whether a stream, a spring, or naturally waterlogged ground, since a constant supply of water was essential to however the trough was being used.