The site is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking place found in enormous numbers across Ireland. The typical arrangement involved a trough filled with water, heated by dropping stones from a fire into it until the water reached a boil. The discarded stones, shattered from repeated thermal shock, accumulated into a distinctive horseshoe-shaped mound, dark and crumbly in texture from the charcoal and ash mixed through them. Thousands of these monuments survive across the island, quietly unremarkable from a distance, and this example in Kilmacanearla North is no exception.

What the record compiled by Denis Power captures here is the afterlife of such a site rather than its original form. The spread of burnt material measures roughly sixteen metres north to south and ten metres east to west, occupying the north-east corner of a field on a north-facing slope. A stream runs immediately to the north, along the base of the field boundary, which is entirely typical: fulachta fia are almost always found close to a reliable water source, since a steady supply was fundamental to how they worked. The mound itself, which stood to a height of approximately one and a half metres, was levelled at some point during the 1970s, according to local information recorded at the time of survey. That act of clearance removed the most visually prominent feature of the site, leaving behind only the spread of burnt material in the soil.

The site sits on private farmland and there is no formal public access. The spread of material is now at ground level following the levelling of the mound, which means the site reads as little more than a darkened area of pasture unless conditions are favourable. A dry spell that firms up the field, or low winter light raking across the surface, can sometimes make the extent of the burnt spread easier to read. The proximity of the stream to the northern boundary is the most obvious surviving feature in the landscape, and standing at that boundary it is straightforward enough to understand why someone chose this particular slope and corner: water immediately to hand, a sheltered aspect for a working fire, and open ground around it.