Measuring roughly four metres long and less than two metres wide, and barely a foot deep, it would have attracted little attention in any era; and yet the blackened earth filling it tells a precise and rather human story about industry in early medieval Clare.

The pit was uncovered in 2004 during excavations carried out ahead of the bypass construction, and a radiocarbon date on elm charcoal recovered from it placed its use somewhere between AD 1010 and 1180. Charcoal-production pits of this kind were used to convert wood into charcoal through slow, controlled burning, a process that requires careful management of oxygen levels and heat. The pit's flat base, its sheltered position near the foot of a slope, and the concentration of charcoal in its fill all point to this function. More specifically, the evidence suggested that two fires had been lit in quick succession, implying either a repeat use or a rapid second attempt, perhaps after an initial burn did not go quite to plan. The choice of elm is notable: it was a timber commonly available in the Irish landscape of the period, and it burns well under the right conditions.