It is easy to pass without registering what it actually is, which is part of what makes it worth a second look.

A lime kiln was used to burn limestone at high temperatures, producing quicklime that farmers spread on acidic soils to improve fertility. This example is a solidly constructed piece of vernacular industrial architecture. Its front wall, built from random rubble stonework, stands three metres high and stretches 4.2 metres across, facing north. At the centre is an arched recess, roughly 1.8 metres high and equally wide, fitted with an inner lintelled arch and sloping slabs set against the rear wall. These slabs would have directed the burnt lime downward and out through the draw hole at the base. Behind the structure, an earthen ramp allowed workers to load limestone and fuel, typically wood or coal, in from the top of the stone-lined funnel. That funnel is now partially infilled, stopping about a metre from the top, which gives some sense of how deep the firing chamber originally ran. The relationship between the kiln and the nearby railway access road is suggestive; the line connecting Cork and Killarney would have made the movement of limestone or coal into this part of Kerry considerably more practical, and small industrial features like this one often clustered around transport routes for exactly that reason.