Fulachtaí fia, the plural of fulacht fia, are ancient burnt mounds typically associated with Bronze Age activity, where stones were heated in fire and dropped into water-filled troughs to bring them to the boil. They survive in their thousands across the Irish landscape, usually appearing as low, horseshoe-shaped mounds of cracked and fire-reddened stone, and the example at Ballycummin is one of at least six clustered in the same general area.

The site came to light not through dedicated research excavation but through the kind of salvage archaeology that motorway and infrastructure projects routinely generate. During monitoring works associated with a dual carriageway built as part of the Dell Factory Development in County Limerick, archaeologist Noel Dunne identified a series of fulachtaí fia that would otherwise have passed unrecorded. This particular example, recorded as fulacht fia 2 or Site B and assigned the reference LI013-230, was excavated under licence 98E0433. The findings, published in 2000, described a burnt spread measuring 9.5 metres by 7.5 metres, beneath which lay eleven hollows of varying shapes and sizes. The excavation report noted that some hollows were probably natural depressions in the ground, others appeared to have been modified by human hand, and still others were likely entirely man-made, suggesting a site that saw repeated or varied use over time.

Because the site was uncovered during construction monitoring rather than as a preserved monument, there is little to see above ground today in the conventional sense. Its value lies in the record it contributed to, alongside its five neighbouring sites, as part of a cluster that points to sustained prehistoric activity in this part of Limerick. Anyone with a serious interest in the archaeology of the area would do well to consult the excavations.ie database, where the 1999 entry, No. 483, provides the primary summary of findings. The site itself is a reminder of how much of the Irish prehistoric record surfaces only when a machine cuts through a field, and how methodical monitoring work can pull something meaningful from what might otherwise simply disappear.