It is a fulacht fia, a type of Bronze Age cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, and one that is easy to overlook precisely because it blends so naturally into its surroundings. Trees have taken root on the mound itself, their roots threading through the ancient scorched debris beneath.

The structure follows a form well established at sites of this kind across the country. A horseshoe-shaped mound, measuring roughly 11 metres north to south and 15 metres east to west, rises to about 1.5 metres at its highest point. At its centre is a depression some 4 metres by 10 metres, open at one end towards the stream. The working theory for how such sites functioned involves heating stones in a fire, then dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil, perhaps for cooking meat or for other purposes such as textile processing or bathing. The discarded, shattered stones, blackened by repeated heating and sudden cooling, were thrown aside to form the distinctive mound that survives today. The proximity to running water was not incidental; a reliable water source was essential to the whole operation, and the stream at Killaspy sits exactly where you would expect it.