The site belongs to a class of monument known as a fulacht fia, a type of ancient outdoor cooking place found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically comprising a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone beside a trough filled with water. The method was straightforward: stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into the water-filled trough to bring it to boiling point, after which food, often meat wrapped in straw or hide, could be cooked.

The Killoran example is notable for the scale and preservation of its physical components. The oak trough measured approximately 8.8 metres north to south and 8.4 metres east to west, a substantial piece of carpentry by any standard, and a timber platform measuring 4 metres by 3 metres sat directly to its east. Radiocarbon dating of the timber placed its use somewhere between 1425 and 1120 BC, situating it firmly in the middle Bronze Age. The figure of 615 firings was arrived at by the excavator through a technical assessment of the volume of material in the mound; each firing leaves behind a quantity of shattered, heat-spent stone, so the accumulated mound becomes a kind of long-term record of activity. Over three centuries or so, 615 uses amounts to roughly two or three firings a year, which suggests either seasonal use or a site that served a community only on particular occasions rather than as an everyday facility.