As groundwork for an industrial development got under way on low-lying ground in County Cork, the tell-tale signs of a fulacht fia emerged: a spread of heat-shattered stones and charcoal-darkened soil marking out a trough and eight associated pits. A fulacht fia, to use the Irish term broadly accepted for this type of site, is a prehistoric cooking place, typically involving a water-filled trough into which fire-heated stones were dropped to bring the water to a boil. Thousands of these sites survive across Ireland, yet each excavated example adds something specific to the picture of how they were actually used.

The trough at Ballyadam was roughly oval, measuring about 2.65 metres east to west and between 1.6 and 2.2 metres north to south, with vertical sides dropping some 45 centimetres to a flat base. At its base, archaeologists found six small stake-holes arranged along the north and south sides, their V-shaped profiles suggesting they had held pegs in place to secure a lining, perhaps of wood or hide, against the trough walls. Two post-holes near the north-west edge of the trough may have supported an upright post connected with the trough's operation, with packing-stones still in place on one side. The fill inside the trough was a single layer of heat-shattered stone and charcoal, which may represent material that slipped in from the surrounding mound over time rather than the debris of a final cooking event. Radiocarbon dating placed the site's use somewhere between 2938 and 2192 cal. BC, firmly in the Bronze Age, and a second possible burnt mound lies approximately 50 metres to the south, hinting that this stretch of low-lying ground saw repeated activity over time.