Four pits came to light at Mondaniel, each scorched and filled with charcoal, their walls and bases carrying the unmistakable signatures of sustained, controlled burning. They were not the remains of a fire but of an industry, specifically the production of charcoal, a fuel that required its own quiet infrastructure long before coal or coke entered the picture.

Charcoal production in the medieval period typically involved packing wood tightly into a pit or mound, covering it to restrict oxygen, and allowing it to smoulder slowly, converting timber into a high-heat, low-smoke fuel used in cooking, heating, and metalworking. The four pits at Mondaniel, ranging in shape from circular to oval to subcircular, varied considerably in size, the largest measuring 1.75 metres by 0.57 metres. One of the smaller pits drew particular attention from the excavator: its dimensions and the intensity of burning at its base suggested it might have functioned as a bowl furnace, a small, cup-shaped hearth used in smelting, though no conclusive evidence of metalworking was found. All four were ultimately interpreted as charcoal production pits. Scattered post-holes were also uncovered nearby, though they did not resolve into any recognisable structure. A radiocarbon date taken from charcoal in the lower fill of the first circular pit placed the site's activity somewhere between AD 1280 and 1420, placing it firmly in the later medieval period, a time when demand for charcoal as an industrial fuel was considerable across rural Ireland.

The site no longer exists in any visible form; it lies beneath or alongside the bypass that prompted its discovery. What remains is the record of four modest pits and what they imply about the working landscape of medieval Cork, an unremarkable patch of ground that briefly, and usefully, burned.