During testing ahead of the N8 Rathcormac-Fermoy Bypass, excavators uncovered an oval pit, roughly two metres by just over a metre and not especially deep, whose contents told a clear enough story: oxidised clay mixed with fire-reddened stones in the lower fill, and a layer of charcoal-enriched silty clay above it. The interpretation, set out by excavator O'Connell, was that this was a charcoal production pit, a feature used to burn wood slowly under reduced oxygen conditions in order to produce charcoal for fuel or metalworking.

The pit was excavated in 2003, and its significance lies less in its scale than in its context. Two hearths were found in the same area, one approximately five and a half metres to the south-east, another around fifteen and a half metres further in the same direction. The clustering of a production pit with nearby hearths suggests a small working area rather than an isolated feature, a place where fire and heat were being put to some sustained practical use. The site sits in the Corrin area, between Rathcormac and Fermoy in north Cork, a corridor of land that has seen considerable archaeological activity precisely because road construction has cut through it systematically. Without that kind of ground investigation, a shallow pit of this sort would leave no surface trace at all.