The one at Inchicorrigane, in County Kerry, is a quiet example of a type that has puzzled researchers for generations. A fulacht fia typically survives as a low, horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stones, usually found close to a water source. The leading theory is that these sites were used for cooking, with water heated by dropping stones, made scalding in a fire, into a trough or pit. Other proposals include their use for textile processing or bathing. Whatever their precise function, they appear predominantly in the Bronze Age, roughly between 1800 and 800 BC, and the sheer number of them across Ireland suggests they were a routine, repeated feature of life rather than anything ceremonial or exceptional.

Inchicorrigane is a townland in Kerry, and the presence of a fulacht fia there places it within a landscape that, across the wider county, is exceptionally rich in prehistoric activity. Kerry's combination of upland terrain, river valleys, and coastal margins made it attractive for Bronze Age communities, and fulachtaí fia cluster in precisely the kinds of low-lying, waterlogged spots that those communities seem to have favoured. The cracked and heat-shattered stone that accumulates at these sites builds up over repeated use into the characteristic mound shape, which is often the only visible trace remaining after three or more millennia. Without excavation, it is rarely possible to say how intensively a particular site was used or over what period.