The one at Lisduggan in north County Cork is a more substantial remnant than most, its front elevation standing four metres high and over six metres wide, built from random-rubble masonry packed around an earthen core. That west-facing face is still largely intact, with an arched recess at its base, roughly two and a half metres wide and two metres deep, where the draw arch once allowed workers to rake out the burned lime. A smaller inner arch sits within it, and a ledge runs above the opening on the outer face. The rear of the structure has collapsed, and the floor of the recess is choked with fallen material from the funnel and core above.

Lime kilns like this one worked by loading alternating layers of limestone and fuel, usually coal or wood, into the stone-lined funnel at the top, then burning the charge slowly over several days. The heat drove off carbon dioxide from the limestone, leaving quicklime, which farmers spread across acidic soils to improve fertility. The Lisduggan kiln was built directly beside the quarry that supplied its raw material, a sensible arrangement that avoided the labour of carting heavy stone any distance. The circular funnel to the rear, now overgrown but still stone-lined, is the loading throat of the whole operation, and its survival, even in a degraded state, gives a clearer sense of how the kiln functioned than the more visible front arch alone would suggest.