These kilns, common across early medieval Ireland, were used to dry harvested grain before milling, a necessary step in the damp Irish climate that prevented spoilage and made the grain easier to grind. What made this one quietly arresting was not just its survival but what it sat beside; a flat cemetery lay only six metres to the southeast, the two monuments entirely unrelated to one another, sharing a gentle westward slope above the meandering stream without any apparent connection.

The kiln was excavated fully as part of works for the motorway, the pit measuring roughly 4.68 metres northeast to southwest and 2.36 metres northwest to southeast, with a maximum depth of around 0.64 metres. The fire-bowl at the northeastern end retained a fire-reddened base and contained two distinct layers of charcoal, evidence of repeated burning. The flue and drying bowl were filled with a dark sandy silt packed with stones and charcoal. Among those stones, excavators found a saddle quern, a flat stone used for hand-grinding grain, and what may have been a second grinding stone was recovered from the sealing layer above. The presence of grinding equipment alongside the kiln suggests this was a working agricultural site where drying and processing of cereals took place in close proximity. The excavation was carried out under licence E004560, with findings reported by Ruttle in 2015.