These are ancient cooking sites, typically Bronze Age in date, identified by their characteristic horseshoe-shaped mounds of burnt and shattered stone. The method they represent is straightforward enough: stones were heated in a fire and dropped into a water-filled trough, bringing it to a boil. Meat could then be cooked, hides tanned, or, according to some experimental archaeologists, even ale brewed. Thousands of these sites survive across Ireland, often in low-lying or marshy ground where water was naturally close to the surface.

The Kilkee example belongs to this broad tradition, though the particulars of its character, its dimensions, its condition, and the precise circumstances of its discovery, remain undocumented in any publicly available form at present. What can be said is that the Clare coastline and its hinterland are not short of prehistoric activity, and a fulacht fia here would fit comfortably into a landscape that was clearly well-used long before the medieval period. The monument is recorded, which means it has been identified and assigned protected status, even if the detailed survey information has yet to be made accessible.