It is the kind of site that a plough might turn up fragments of without anyone pausing to wonder about it, yet it represents one of the most widespread and intriguing features of the Irish Bronze Age landscape.

What lies here is a fulacht fia, a term used to describe the burnt mounds left behind by an ancient cooking method that was practised across Ireland for thousands of years, broadly from around 1500 BC onward. The typical arrangement involved a trough dug into the ground, often lined with wood or stone, which was filled with water. Stones were heated in a nearby fire and then dropped into the trough, bringing the water rapidly to a boil. Food, most likely wrapped meat, was then cooked in this heated water. The process left behind exactly what is recorded at Kilgobnet: a spreading mound of heat-shattered, fire-blackened stone, discarded after each use because once a stone has cracked in the heat it no longer holds warmth efficiently. Over repeated use, these dumps of material accumulated into the low, often horseshoe-shaped mounds that survive across the Irish countryside in their thousands. The Kilgobnet example, at thirty metres by thirty metres, is a substantial deposit, suggesting either prolonged or repeated activity at this particular spot.