Measuring roughly ten metres by twelve, it rises only about ten centimetres above the surrounding ground, an almost imperceptible swell in the grass on the western side of a field drain. What it lacks in presence it makes up for in age and purpose: this is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stones accumulated over repeated use. The usual method involved heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil. Over time, the spent, shattered stones were raked aside and piled up, forming the characteristic mound that archaeologists now recognise across the Irish landscape.

What gives the Coolcaum site a particular edge of melancholy is a detail preserved in local memory. A circular mound, some four and a half metres in diameter and half a metre high, once formed part of the same site. That feature was levelled in 1978, leaving only the flattened spread of burnt material that survives today. The site does not stand entirely alone, however. A second fulacht fia lies approximately 130 metres to the south, which is not unusual; these monuments have a tendency to cluster, perhaps reflecting repeated occupation of favourable, waterlogged ground over generations.