This particular example came to light not through a deliberate excavation campaign but as a consequence of pipeline construction: archaeological monitoring during topsoil stripping along the route of the Caherlag-Ballincollig Bord Gáis Éireann pipeline brought the site to light in 1999, giving archaeologists a narrow but useful window in which to record it.

A fulacht fia, the term used across Irish archaeology for these burnt-mound sites, typically consists of a mound of fire-cracked stones beside a water-filled trough. The stones would be heated in a hearth and dropped into the trough to boil water, most likely for cooking. The site at Butlerstown Little follows this pattern closely but preserves an unusual degree of structural detail. The spread of heat-shattered stones and charcoal-enriched soil measured at least 25 metres north to south and 10 metres east to west, making it a substantial example. Excavation revealed an elongated oval trough, 4.62 metres east to west and 1.4 metres north to south, with straight sides, a flat bottom, and stone-lining surviving at both ends. At the eastern end sat a roughly horseshoe-shaped kerbed hearth, measuring 1.3 by 1.1 metres, with its open end directed towards the trough, an arrangement that makes the relationship between fire and water explicit in the archaeology. A stone surface survived around the north-eastern edge of the trough, and a circular pit cutting through the trough's southern edge was interpreted as a possible roasting pit, suggesting that dry-heat cooking may have taken place alongside the boiling process.