Kilns of this kind were once common across the Irish countryside, used to burn limestone at high temperatures to produce quicklime for agricultural use, spreading on fields to reduce soil acidity and improve fertility. Most were simple, functional constructions that followed local conventions fairly closely. This one, however, does not quite fit the pattern expected of mid-Cork examples, and instead resembles kilns found along the West Cork coast.

The structure is rectangular with rounded corners, measuring roughly 4.6 metres north to south and 4.2 metres east to west, and is now very overgrown and partially collapsed. Its most distinctive feature is a lintelled passage at the base of the front elevation, off-centre to the north, leading into the stone-lined funnel where the burning would have taken place. The passage is notably low, just 0.4 metres high and 0.5 metres wide, extending about 1.2 metres into the body of the kiln. A forecourt area to the east, enclosed by stone revetting on the north and south sides, adds to its slightly atypical character. The southern end of the front elevation has collapsed and is heavily overgrown, and the funnel itself is partially infilled. The kiln appears on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842, which places its construction at least that far back, though it may well be older.

The site is not easily visited in any conventional sense; the overgrowth and partial collapse make close inspection difficult, and the rock outcrop against which it was built means the structure was never entirely freestanding. What survives is enough to read the basic layout, the forecourt, the narrow passage, the funnel, and to appreciate that whoever built it was working from a model more common on the western coastline than in the mid-Cork interior.