At Ballinaclogh, lying between Newtownmountkennedy and Ballynabarney, contractors working on a road improvement project in 2003 exposed what turned out to be two ancient hearths, preserved beneath the surface and still carrying physical evidence of the fires that had once burned within them.

Both hearths showed signs of in situ burning, meaning the burning had taken place at the spot itself rather than material being deposited there secondarily. One yielded a single flint fragment; the other gave up another flint fragment alongside nine stones shaped into triangles. Flint, which does not occur naturally across much of Ireland, required deliberate collection and knapping, pointing to people who knew how to work stone with intent. The triangular stones are harder to interpret with certainty, but shaped stones associated with hearths often served functional roles in cooking or heat management. The excavation was carried out under licence in 2003 and the finds were recorded by Lynch in 2007. Beyond that, the record is spare, and the date of the hearths themselves is not specified in the available evidence, leaving open a considerable span of prehistoric or early historic possibility.