This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in great numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a burnt mound of shattered stone beside a trough and a hearth. Stones were heated in a fire and dropped into a water-filled pit to bring the water to a boil, and the repeated cracking of those stones under thermal stress is what built up the characteristic mound over time.

When Seán P. Ó Ríordáin excavated this example in 1937, he found a horseshoe-shaped hearth roughly 1.8 metres long, defined by a double setting of stones and floored with paving. At its open end sat a pit, approximately 1.5 metres long, 1.2 metres wide, and 0.8 metres deep, which filled naturally with water, presumably fed by the well that Ó Ríordáin noted in close proximity to the mound. The mound itself extended to around 17 metres in length. The only object recovered from the excavation was a single ox bone, a modest find but one that at least gestures toward the animals that were part of the site's working life. What makes the location slightly more unusual is that a second fulacht fia sits roughly 30 metres to the south, suggesting that this particular spot near its water source was returned to, or that activity here was more sustained than a single episode.