The site is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric outdoor cooking place found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough, a hearth, and a mound of fire-cracked stones that accumulated as hot rocks were used to boil water. They are among the most common archaeological monument types on the island, yet individually they tend to surface only by accident, quiet interruptions to ordinary agricultural work.

This particular example came to light around 1988, when the landowner was carrying out land reclamation and set about digging a drain. The digging exposed a spread of burnt material, the characteristic debris that marks these sites: darkened earth mixed with the fractured stones that were repeatedly heated and plunged into water until they became too damaged to use and were discarded to the side. The discovery was reported and recorded, adding one more entry to the considerable catalogue of such monuments in west Cork, a county where the underlying landscape has preserved an unusual density of prehistoric remains.