It is, in fact, a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in great numbers across Ireland, typically identified by a horseshoe-shaped mound of heat-shattered stone and charcoal left behind after repeated use. The burnt material here was noted on the eastern bank of the stream and within the stream bed itself, which fits the pattern well: water was essential to the process, with stones heated in fire then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil.

What makes this particular location quietly interesting is the density of such sites in the immediate area. A second fulacht fia lies roughly 140 metres to the south, and the two are probably among a cluster of four recorded at Island, all noted by a researcher named Bowman as far back as 1934. That early record suggests these sites caught the attention of local antiquarians well before systematic national survey work began. Fulachta fiadh are generally associated with the Bronze Age, though some have produced dates ranging from the Neolithic into the early medieval period, and their precise function, whether primarily for cooking, bathing, or industrial processes such as textile work, remains a matter of ongoing debate among archaeologists. Finding four of them clustered in one townland points to sustained, repeated activity in this landscape over a long period rather than a single isolated event.