Kilns of this kind, most commonly lime kilns, were once a familiar feature of the Irish countryside. A lime kiln is a stone-built structure in which limestone was burned at high temperature to produce quicklime, used to fertilise fields and to make mortar for building. They were typically constructed close to both a limestone source and the farmland they served, which means their locations often tell you something about the agricultural history of a particular patch of ground.

Beyond its classification as a kiln in the Assolas townland, detailed records for this specific structure are not yet available. What can be said is that kilns of this type were in widespread use from the seventeenth century onward in Ireland, reaching peak activity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when improving landlords and tenant farmers alike invested in lime as a means of correcting the acidity of boggy or exhausted soils. Their distribution across Cork reflects both the county's geology and the pressures of agricultural improvement that shaped so much of the rural landscape before and after the Famine.