It is the kind of site that rewards knowing what you are looking at, because to an uninformed eye there is very little left to see. What remains is a fulacht fia, the Irish term for a type of prehistoric cooking or industrial site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stones, charcoal, and ash, usually positioned close to a water source.

The proximity to the stream is entirely characteristic. The prevailing interpretation of fulachta fia is that they functioned as outdoor cooking sites, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil. Over repeated use, the shattered and discarded stones accumulated into the mounded form that survives at so many sites across the country. The example at Ballyhoolahan Middle conformed to that familiar pattern until around 1974, when, according to local information, the mound was levelled. What had been a legible prehistoric feature was reduced to the low, diffuse spread of burnt material that can be seen today.