Fulling was the process by which woven woollen cloth was beaten and cleansed, typically using heavy wooden hammers driven by a waterwheel, to thicken and felt the fibres into a durable finished fabric. These mills were once scattered across the Irish countryside wherever a reliable stream and a local weaving trade coincided, yet few people today would recognise one if they walked past its remains.

Beyond its classification and its location in Knocknageehy, the documentary record for this particular site is sparse. What can be said is that fulling mills in Ireland generally flourished between the medieval period and the nineteenth century, when industrialised textile production elsewhere gradually made small rural operations unviable. Cork, with its tradition of wool production and its access to water-powered sites, would have supported a number of such mills across its townlands, many of which have left little more than a scatter of stone or a tellingly flat platform beside a stream.