This is a burnt mound, a type of prehistoric site found across Ireland and Britain whose precise purpose has long been debated. The leading theory is that they were cooking sites, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil. The stones fracture in the process, and over repeated use the cracked and discarded fragments accumulate into the distinctive mounded spreads that survive today, often in wet or boggy ground.

This particular spread measures roughly ten metres north to south and eight metres east to west, sitting at a shallow depth of between ten and twenty centimetres below the surface. It came to light in 2007 during test trenching carried out as part of an archaeological assessment ahead of a proposed mixed-use development in the area, with excavation work recorded under licence by Cummins in 2008. What made the investigation more interesting was the discovery of a second burnt spread located forty metres to the south. Two such features in close proximity raises questions about how the site was used over time, whether by the same community returning repeatedly, or whether the two spreads represent distinct episodes of activity separated by years or generations. Burnt mounds are generally associated with the Bronze Age, though some have produced evidence spanning a wider range of periods.