What changed its status was a road scheme: monitoring of topsoil-stripping along the proposed route of the N20/N21 Limerick bypass brought it to light, and in 1999 archaeologist Ciara McManus excavated what turned out to be a fulacht fia, the term used for a type of prehistoric burnt mound associated with the repeated heating of stones and the boiling of water, most likely for cooking, bathing, or craft processes. These monuments are common across Ireland but rarely get the forensic attention this one received.

McManus recorded a mound measuring 17 metres long, 9 metres wide, and just 0.35 metres high, its interior packed with heat-shattered limestone and charcoal-rich soil, the residue of many cycles of fire and water. Set into the south-west quadrant of the mound was a rectangular trough, roughly 2.1 metres by 1 metre and 0.28 metres deep, with steep sides and a flat base, the kind of vessel into which hot stones would have been dropped to bring water rapidly to the boil. Some 1.3 metres to the north of the trough, excavators uncovered a separate oval pit, 1.2 metres deep, its southern half stepped and its northern sides more vertical. This pit had been filled with repeated deposits of burnt and shattered limestone along with silt, and among its contents were small fragments of animal bone and two pieces of unworked wood. Around the eastern edge of the pit, twelve stake-holes were identified, possibly representing a windbreak or a light structure that once spanned the pit opening. A roughly north-south double line of stakes was the closest thing to a pattern, though drainage disturbance on the western side prevented any firm conclusions about the original layout.

The site lies in gently undulating farmland about 100 metres east of the townland boundary with Ballybronogue South, with relatively open views in all directions. A hearth and a ring-ditch, both separate recorded monuments, lie around 285 metres to the south-west, suggesting this was a landscape with a longer and more varied prehistory than the flat fields now suggest. The mound itself is no longer visible on aerial imagery from either 2011 to 2013 or 2018, meaning the ground surface has been substantially levelled since excavation. A visitor would find nothing obvious to see today, but the records from McManus's 1999 excavation, held under licence number 99E0171, document a site that rewarded close attention with a detailed picture of organised, repeated activity from Ireland's prehistoric past.