On the summit of a hill just north of a spring well, excavators working ahead of the N8 Rathcormac-Fermoy Bypass in 2003 uncovered a low, horseshoe-shaped mound of heat-shattered stones mixed with charcoal-enriched soil. This is the signature of a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking place found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough filled with water into which fire-heated stones were dropped to bring the water to a boil. The mound itself, measuring roughly 13 metres east to west and 12 metres north to south, is the accumulated debris of those spent, cracked stones discarded after repeated use.

The excavation revealed not one trough but three, each cutting into the last, suggesting the site was returned to and reworked across a significant span of time. Radiocarbon dating placed the earliest activity firmly in the Early Bronze Age, with the main fill of the oldest trough dated to between 2400 and 2140 cal. BC. Beneath the mound itself, excavators found a dense cluster of at least forty small pits and stake-holes, their fills laced with charcoal-flecked clay and, in many cases, stones set at their bases. Whether these represent post-holes from a now-vanished timber structure is unclear; no recognisable pattern emerged to suggest a building. The proximity of two further fulachtaí fia, one roughly ten metres to the south-west and another fifteen metres to the east, hints that this hilltop near Fermoy was a place of repeated, organised activity rather than a single isolated episode of use. The spring well just downhill would have been the obvious water source, and the elevated position perhaps made the site easier to manage or to find.