It is, in fact, a limekiln, and what makes this particular spot quietly unusual is that it is not alone: a second kiln of the same type stands roughly twenty metres to the east, the two of them forming a small industrial pair in an otherwise unremarkable rural stretch.

Limekilns were the workhorses of the nineteenth-century Irish countryside. Farmers burned limestone at high temperatures inside these stone chambers to produce quicklime, which was then applied to fields to reduce soil acidity, or used in the making of mortar for building work. This example dates from the mid to late 1800s and is built from random rubble sandstone and shale, materials gathered locally rather than dressed or quarried to any particular specification. The front wall, which faces south, stands roughly two metres high and three and a half metres wide. At its centre is a lintelled recess, meaning an opening spanned by a horizontal stone across the top, measuring just over a metre and a half in height and not quite one and a half metres in depth. This would have been the draw arch, the opening through which the burned lime was raked out once the firing was complete. The top of the kiln is no longer accessible, but the front elevation survives largely intact, its southern aspect and roadside position suggesting it was built to be worked conveniently from the road.