It measures roughly fourteen metres east to west and eight metres north to south, rising only about sixty centimetres from the surrounding ground. What looks like a modest earthwork is almost certainly a fulacht fia, a type of ancient cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically dating to the Bronze Age. The standard interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire, dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to boiling point, and used to cook meat. The characteristic crescent-shaped or horseshoe mound of shattered, fire-cracked stone and charred material is what accumulates over time around the trough, and it is precisely that debris which forms the mound visible today.

What makes the Lackaneen example particularly interesting is that it does not stand alone. In 1934, a researcher named Bowman documented four fulachta fiadh in the same area, all on land then belonging to a Mr O'Flynn. The clustering of these sites in one location is not unusual for fulachta fiadh, which are often found in groups near water sources, but it does suggest sustained activity in this landscape over a long period. The proximity to a stream would have been essential, providing the water supply on which the whole process depended.