Today, kilns of this type are easily overlooked, their low stone forms blending into the landscape, yet they represent a critical stage in the agricultural cycle that sustained communities for centuries. Before grain could be stored, milled, or used for food, it had to be thoroughly dried, particularly in the damp Irish climate where harvests were regularly brought in wet. The kiln provided the controlled heat to do that work.

Corn-drying kilns typically consisted of a small stone-built flue or bowl, often keyhole-shaped in plan, over which a wooden frame or stone shelf would hold the grain while heat from a fire below drew moisture out of it. They are found across Ireland in considerable numbers, many of them associated with early medieval settlement, though examples continued in use into the post-medieval period. The Latoon example sits within a county that has a particularly dense record of such agricultural monuments, Clare's landscape preserving traces of farming practices that predate the large-scale changes brought by the nineteenth century. Latoon itself is a townland name derived from the Irish, and like many such places in the west of Ireland, it carries within its boundaries a layered record of occupation and land use that only partially survives above ground.