The discovery in 1972 revealed a spread of burnt material measuring roughly four metres long and two and a half metres wide, the characteristic signature of a fulacht fia. These are among the most common prehistoric monuments in Ireland, essentially outdoor cooking places used during the Bronze Age, in which water-filled troughs were heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into them. The stones, once used, were discarded into a mound nearby, and it is those distinctive spreads of shattered, blackened stone that archaeologists recognise as the defining trace of the site type.

What makes the Ballynoe example quietly telling is precisely what it lacks. There is no visible surface trace remaining, meaning the site is effectively invisible to anyone walking across it today. Its existence was only recorded because groundwork for a dwelling house cut through the buried deposit and brought it to the attention of researchers. The site was subsequently noted by Walsh in 1985 and catalogued as part of the broader archaeological record for East and South Cork. Without that accidental exposure, it would almost certainly have remained entirely unknown.