Kilns of this kind, most commonly lime kilns, were once a familiar feature of the Irish rural landscape. A lime kiln was a simple but essential structure, typically a stone-built funnel or bowl set into a hillside, used to burn limestone at high temperatures to produce quicklime for fertilising fields and mortaring walls. They were built in their hundreds across Connacht, and most have quietly collapsed back into the land that produced them, leaving only a hollow or a scatter of scorched stone to mark where they stood.