The site at Maglin came to light during archaeological test-trenching carried out ahead of construction, a standard precaution on major road projects that regularly turns up precisely this kind of prehistoric material in Cork's well-watered lowlands.

A fulacht fia is, in its simplest form, a burnt mound: the accumulated debris of repeated episodes of heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled pit or trough to bring the water to a boil. The stones shatter from the thermal shock, and over time a characteristic mound of cracked, blackened rock and charcoal-enriched soil builds up nearby. At Maglin, excavation revealed a subcircular spread of this material measuring roughly 6.5 metres by 5.5 metres, surviving to a maximum depth of 0.25 metres. Two small circular pits sat adjacent to the main spread, each around 0.6 metres in diameter and roughly 0.22 to 0.25 metres deep. These pits may represent working hollows or subsidiary features associated with whatever activity was taking place, though the function of fulachta fia remains a subject of ongoing archaeological discussion, with cooking, textile processing, and bathing all proposed as possibilities over the years.