It is easy to miss, and that is partly the point. This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically identified by the distinctive crescent or kidney-shaped mound of fire-cracked stones left behind after repeated use. The stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil, and the discarded, shattered stones gradually built up into the mound that survives today. Most date to the Bronze Age, though examples from other periods are known.

What makes the Kippagh example quietly telling is the degree to which it has already been diminished. When a researcher named Broker recorded it in 1937, the mound was described as flush with the ground and almost removed, with a diameter of around thirty-five feet. Decades later the site still registers as an oval spread of burnt material, measuring roughly eight metres north to south and twelve metres east to west, but at only about half a metre in height it represents a fraction of what would once have been a more substantial feature. The proximity to a well is not incidental; fulachtaí fia are almost always found near a reliable water source, whether a stream, a spring, or, as here, a well, since the whole process depended on a ready supply.