These are Bronze Age cooking sites, found in their thousands across Ireland, typically identified by the characteristic horseshoe or spread of heat-shattered stone left behind when rocks were heated in fire and dropped into water-filled troughs to bring them to the boil. The stones crack and crumble with repeated use, and over centuries the discarded fragments accumulate into the dark, humped spreads that archaeologists recognise today.

The Ightermurragh example measures roughly 8 metres on its northeast to southwest axis and 3 metres across, sitting in a ploughed field some 28 metres north of a stream. That proximity to water is entirely typical; a reliable water source was a practical necessity for the process. About 14 metres further north of the main spread lies a separate patch of dark brown soil, approximately 6 metres across, containing burnt stones as well. Whether this second concentration represents an ancillary feature, an earlier episode of use, or simply dispersal caused by centuries of ploughing is not recorded, but its presence hints that activity in this corner of the field was not a single isolated event.

The site is visible as a surface feature in ploughed ground, which means its appearance will vary considerably depending on the season and the state of cultivation. The burnt and broken stone that defines these monuments tends to show most clearly when soil has been recently turned, contrasting with the surrounding earth in both colour and texture.