A fulacht fia is essentially a Bronze Age cooking place, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The residue, cracked and blackened stone mixed with charcoal and ash, accumulated over repeated use into the horseshoe-shaped mounds that survive across the Irish countryside in their thousands. The mound at Ballyhoolahan measures roughly 11.5 metres north to south and about 7 metres east to west, rising just over a metre in height, though it was once slightly taller before being partially levelled in 1984.

The site does not stand alone. The townland of Ballyhoolahan was surveyed by Bowman in 1934, who recorded as many as 19 fulachta fiadh within its boundaries, making it a place of unusually concentrated prehistoric activity. A second example lies roughly 250 metres to the south-east. Whether the clustering reflects intensive seasonal use of the land, repeated occupation over centuries, or simply the waterlogged conditions that favour both the monuments' original function and their long-term survival, is difficult to say without excavation. The waterlogged pasture setting is itself typical; these sites almost always occur near natural water sources, which were as essential to their use as the fire itself.