This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in their thousands across Ireland, typically identified by the characteristic horseshoe or kidney-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone left behind after repeated use. The basic method involved heating stones in a fire, dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil, and using that heat to cook meat. The stones, fractured by the thermal shock, were discarded in a pile beside the trough, and it is that pile which survives as the mound visible today.

The mound at Urraghilmore is subcircular in shape, measuring seventeen metres east to west and fifteen metres north to south, and rises only about thirty-five centimetres above the surrounding ground. In its eastern half there is a depression, approximately six and a half metres by four and a half metres and around forty centimetres deep, which likely marks the position of the original trough. The proximity to a stream, just forty metres to the northwest, is entirely typical; a reliable water source was a practical requirement for any site of this kind. What makes this particular location a little more interesting is that a second fulacht fia lies roughly a hundred and thirty metres to the northeast, suggesting this stretch of the north Cork countryside was a place of repeated, perhaps seasonal, activity in prehistory rather than a single isolated episode.