These kilns were a practical necessity in the damp western climate, where harvested grain, often oats or barley, could not reliably be dried in the open air. A typical corn-drying kiln consisted of a small stone-built flue or bowl, usually set into a slope to aid the draw of heat, over which grain was spread on a wooden or wicker floor. The heat rising from a slow fire below would drive moisture from the grain before it was milled or stored, a process that could mean the difference between a usable harvest and a ruined one.

Such kilns are found scattered across the west of Ireland, most dating from the medieval period through to the nineteenth century, and many fell out of use as improved transport and commercial milling made local processing less essential. The example at Rinnaseer is recorded as a monument, placing it among the catalogued physical traces of a pre-industrial agricultural landscape that is gradually being pieced together across the country. Mayo, with its thin soils and Atlantic weather, would have depended heavily on this kind of small-scale infrastructure, and the survival of even a partial structure in the townland of Rinnaseer gives some material texture to that dependence.