What makes it worth pausing at is what was found just beneath the surface: three parallel timber planks, carefully worked and remarkably well preserved, sitting in damp ground where they had lain for what may be several thousand years. They are the possible remnants of a fulacht fia trough, and their survival alone is quietly extraordinary.

Fulachtaí fia are among the most common prehistoric monuments in Ireland, appearing as horseshoe-shaped or oval mounds of heat-shattered stone and charcoal-dark soil. The prevailing interpretation is that they were used for cooking, most likely by heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The trough here at Cloghacloka was partially excavated in 1988 by Gowen, who found that the mound material reached a maximum thickness of just 0.15 metres and spread across an area roughly 20 metres wide. Embedded within it, to a depth of 30 millimetres, were three roughly hewn planks set parallel to one another on a level surface. Gowen suggested these timbers may represent the basal lining of a wooden trough, a lining that had been deliberately constructed rather than thrown together. All three had clearly been worked by hand and were in good condition when excavated, a rarity for organic material in any Irish soil.

The site sits on a gentle south-facing slope in poorly drained pasture, about 20 metres north of the Barnakyle River, sheltered to the south-west by a deciduous wood on a nearby hill. The waterlogged ground that makes the field awkward to cross is also precisely what helped preserve those wooden planks for so long. Visitors should expect uneven, wet terrain and no formal access path. The low profile of the mound means it reads as little more than a slight rise in the field, so knowing what you are looking for before arrival makes a considerable difference. It is the kind of site best visited in late summer or early autumn when vegetation is lower and the ground, relatively speaking, at its driest.