What it represents, however, is one of the more curious recurring features of the Irish Bronze Age landscape. A fulacht fia is essentially an ancient cooking site, the mound itself being the accumulated debris of thousands of fire-cracked stones. The method was straightforward: stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil, after which the cracked, spent stones were discarded to the side. Repeated use over years or centuries built up the characteristic horseshoe-shaped or elongated mounds that survive across Ireland today.

The mound at Labbamolaga Middle measures 13.2 metres north to south and 2.8 metres across, rising to a modest 0.25 metres above the surrounding ground. It sits on the western side of a stream, which is entirely typical; proximity to a reliable water source was a practical necessity for this kind of activity. Local knowledge holds that the mound was once considerably higher than it appears today, suggesting that material has been dispersed or has settled over time, as is common with sites that have been in agricultural use for generations. The burnt stone mounds found across Cork and the wider country tend to date from the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some sites saw use across extended periods.