It would be easy to walk past it without a second glance. What it represents, however, is a type of site that turns up across the Irish landscape in surprising numbers: a fulacht fia, the remains of a prehistoric cooking place, where stones were heated in fire and dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The scorched, shattered stones were then raked to one side, and over repeated use they accumulated into the distinctive horseshoe or kidney-shaped mounds that survive today.

The example at Ballycoony measures roughly 17.6 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 14.8 metres across, opening towards the northwest. It sits in marshy ground, which is entirely typical; fulachtaí fia are almost always found near water sources, whether streams, springs, or boggy hollows, since a reliable supply of water was central to their function. The northeastern sector of the mound is currently obscured by gorse, but the overall form remains legible. Notably, it is not alone: a second fulacht fia lies approximately sixty metres to the east, suggesting this stretch of low-lying ground beside the stream was a place of repeated, perhaps sustained, prehistoric activity.