The one at Baile An Tsagairt, in County Kerry, is a quiet example of a type of site that continues to puzzle researchers. A fulacht fia typically survives as a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone, usually positioned close to a water source. The working theory, supported by experimental archaeology, is that these were Bronze Age cooking places, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. Some researchers have proposed alternative uses, including textile processing or bathing, though cooking remains the most widely accepted explanation.

The place name Baile An Tsagairt translates from Irish as the townland of the priest, a name that speaks to a layer of history considerably more recent than the Bronze Age monument it contains. Kerry has a particularly dense concentration of fulachtaí fia, owing in part to the county's boggy, well-watered terrain, which both preserved the burnt stone mounds over millennia and provided the standing water these sites seem to have required. The monument at Baile An Tsagairt sits within this broader landscape tradition, a remnant of activity from roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though individual sites vary considerably in date.