It was the scorched ghost of a working process: eight parallel rows of brick-based material, the ground between them burned a deep red from intense firing, and the soft blackened clay still holding the rectangular impressions of bricks that had long since been removed or crumbled. The whole spread measured roughly 10.5 metres east to west by 7 metres, and it would have remained entirely invisible had a gas pipeline not prompted the stripping of topsoil across the area.

The site came to light during archaeological monitoring of the Bord Gáis Éireann Barnakyle to Coonagh West pipeline, and was excavated by Ken Wiggins under licence 02E1814. What he uncovered was a brick clamp, a temporary kiln structure built to fire bricks on the spot rather than transport unfired material elsewhere. The rows, spaced between 0.5 and 0.7 metres apart and running roughly north-west to south-east, represent the stacking arrangement of the unfired bricks, with the spaces between acting as flues for the heat. The surviving deposits were shallow, no more than 0.1 metres deep, and the site had been further damaged by mechanical levelling, probably connected to works on the Shannon embankment some 400 metres to the north. The 1840 Ordnance Survey map had already noted the location as lying on the edge of a brick field, and similar brick fields and brick holes appear on the same map at Castlemungret, Bunlicky, Ballykeeffe, and Ballinacurra, suggesting that brick production along this stretch of the Shannon was a recognisable local industry. Comparable clamp kilns have been found elsewhere in Ireland, including one excavated at Portumna during sewerage works in 1998, dated by its excavator to the 17th century, and another uncovered during a separate Bord Gáis pipeline project in 2002 at Dollas Upper.

There is nothing visible at the site today. The kiln was exposed, recorded, and the pipeline work continued. Its significance lies less in any surviving fabric than in what its discovery confirmed: that raw materials were quarried and fired in the same location, the temporary kiln assembled, used, and effectively abandoned in place. Anyone with an interest in the industrial archaeology of the Shannon corridor might find it worth reading the excavation report alongside the 1840 OS map sheet, which preserves the now-vanished topography of the brick fields more clearly than the ground itself ever could.