Measuring roughly 5.5 metres by 9.8 metres, it is one of those archaeological discoveries that never becomes a monument or a tourist marker, yet tells a small, legible story about how people once used a wet and peaty corner of the Irish midlands.

The spread came to light in 2002, when archaeologist Richard Crumlish was conducting monitoring work on a development to the south of an existing earthwork in the area. Monitoring of this kind involves watching the mechanical stripping of topsoil and recording anything that emerges before it is disturbed further, a routine but often productive process. In this case the ground yielded not just the burnt spread but a second one nearby, two areas of charcoal-enriched soil, and a fulacht fiadh. A fulacht fiadh is a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site, typically identified by a mound of fire-cracked stone beside a trough or hollow, where water was heated by dropping in stones that had been heated in a fire. They are among the most commonly found prehistoric features in Ireland. The cluster of evidence at Derryville, all of it sitting in peaty ground along a field boundary, suggests repeated or sustained activity in this spot over time. The burnt spread itself was recorded and then left in situ, covered back over with the topsoil that had been lifted to reveal it.