These horseshoe-shaped mounds, typically found near water, are the remains of ancient cooking sites, where stones were heated in fire and then dropped into water-filled troughs to bring them to the boil. The process left behind cracked, fire-shattered stone and, over millennia, a gently rounded mound that can be easy to walk past without a second glance. The example recorded at An Choill Mhór, in County Kerry, is one such site, quietly occupying its place in a landscape that has long been associated with this kind of low-key, practical prehistory.

The name An Choill Mhór translates from Irish as the great wood, which hints at the character of the land in which this monument sits. Fulachtaí fia are generally dated to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some examples have earlier or later origins. The mounds tend to cluster near streams or boggy ground, since a reliable water source was essential to the whole operation. Kerry has a particularly high concentration of these sites, a reflection of both its wet topography and the density of prehistoric settlement along its river valleys and coastal margins. Beyond its location and type, the specific history of the An Choill Mhór site remains undocumented in any detail that has been made publicly available.