The one at Ranaleen is a quiet example of a type of monument that archaeologists have puzzled over for decades. A fulacht fia typically appears as a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone, usually found close to a water source. The working theory, now broadly accepted, is that these were cooking sites: a trough dug into the ground would be filled with water, and stones heated in a nearby fire would be dropped in to bring it to the boil. Experiments have shown the method works efficiently, and a carcass can be cooked in a few hours. Some researchers have also proposed uses ranging from textile processing to bathing, though cooking remains the most widely supported explanation.

The monument at Ranaleen sits within a county that has long rewarded those interested in prehistoric remains. Kerry's boggy ground has preserved fulachtaí fia particularly well; the same waterlogged conditions that made these sites practical in the Bronze Age have also protected the burnt mounds from the worst effects of erosion and agriculture over the millennia. Most Irish examples date broadly to the second millennium BC, placing them in a period when small farming communities worked the landscape intensively and left behind a surprisingly dense archaeology beneath the modern fields and bogs.