The year 1830 was marked in metal numbers on its west elevation, a statement of industrial modernity on the seafront of a medieval port town. Three tall brick arches, each rising to around eight metres, dominated that same facade, their openings long blocked but their scale still suggesting the kind of civic ambition that accompanied the early spread of coal gas lighting across Irish towns. Three circular oculi sat above the arches; a matching set appeared on the east elevation. The main structure was rectangular, built of coursed sandstone with a slate roof that was half-hipped to the east and gabled to the west, the gables given segmental curves capped with limestone coping. A shorter, roofless building stood to the south, sharing the same distinctive gable profile, and a small stone extension projected to the north.

When the 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map was made, the building sat directly on the seafront. The land to its east was still water, or foreshore; reclamation work carried out in the late nineteenth century eventually pushed the shoreline further out, quietly altering the relationship between the gasworks and the sea that had once defined its setting. Inside, brick lined parts of the west and south walls, and pipe-fittings ran the full length of the building, physical traces of the infrastructure that had once distributed gas into Youghal's streets and homes. By the time anyone thought to record these details carefully, the building was already approaching the end of its life. It was demolished in the late 1980s, leaving only the documentary record and whatever impression it had made on the reclaimed ground beside the estuary.