The site is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically identified at the surface as a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone and dark, charcoal-rich earth. They are so common that they barely register as remarkable, yet the one at Warrenstown, when finally opened up, turned out to preserve something relatively rare: the trough itself, more or less intact.

The site came to light in 2006 during excavations carried out ahead of road improvements between Cullahill and Cashel. What the team uncovered was a substantial burnt mound, roughly fifteen metres by thirteen metres and up to thirty-five centimetres deep, packed with heat-shattered stone and charcoal. Beneath it lay an oval cut, not much larger than a bathtub, with worked wooden planks laid across its base and a ring of wooden stakes around its edge. This was the trough where water was heated, stones plunged in to bring it to the boil, and whatever was being cooked or processed placed inside. A radiocarbon date obtained from one of the stakes placed the activity between approximately 2120 and 1880 BC, squarely in the Irish Bronze Age. The River Goul lies immediately to the west, which would have made the site well chosen; a reliable water source was essential to the whole operation. A second burnt mound was found and excavated about twenty metres to the south-west, suggesting this stretch of wetland edge saw repeated use across some stretch of time.