It is roughly twelve metres across and half a metre high, its opening facing south towards the water. This is a fulacht fia, one of thousands of Bronze Age cooking sites scattered across the Irish countryside, and one of the more common yet persistently mysterious features of the archaeological landscape.

A fulacht fia, sometimes called a burnt mound, is the accumulated debris of an ancient cooking method. The working principle was straightforward: stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough, bringing the water rapidly to the boil. The stones shattered in the process and were discarded nearby, building up over time into the distinctive horseshoe-shaped mounds that survive today, their characteristic dark colouring coming from the repeated burning. The siting beside a pond at Ballynoe is entirely typical; water access was essential. What is less common here is the proximity of a second possible example of the same type, recorded roughly twenty-two metres to the south-west, suggesting that this particular spot may have seen repeated or sustained use over time. Whether the two sites were contemporary or represent activity at different periods is not known.