A lime kiln was a stone-built furnace, typically built into a hillside or bank, used to burn limestone at high temperatures to produce quicklime. Farmers spread that quicklime across acidic soils to improve fertility, making these kilns as essential to agricultural life as the plough itself.

The townland name Tooreenglanahee, derived from the Irish, points to a small, particular patch of Cork countryside where this kiln sits as a physical trace of the agricultural routines that sustained rural communities for generations. Lime burning was labour-intensive work: limestone and fuel, usually turf or coal, were loaded in alternating layers from the top of the kiln, and the finished quicklime was drawn out from the arched opening at the base. The structures were often built communally or shared between neighbouring farms, and their distribution across a landscape can suggest where farming activity was concentrated and where the underlying geology made lime burning practical and worthwhile.