A fulacht fia, typically a burnt mound of fire-cracked stones associated with Bronze Age cooking or industrial activity, was logged here in 2001 by the Discovery Programme. It seemed, on paper, a worthwhile addition to the archaeological record. The site had not appeared in either the 1992 or 1996 national monuments surveys, but the field evidence appeared convincing enough to warrant inclusion.

When investigators returned in 2005, the picture shifted considerably. What had been interpreted as the characteristic raised spread of a fulacht fia was, in fact, the residual topography of a quarry that had since been grassed over. The low hummocks that can suggest a burnt mound to a trained eye were simply the uneven ground left behind by extraction work. The site was quietly reclassified, a reminder that surface reading of a landscape, particularly one that has been disturbed and then allowed to re-vegetate, can lead even careful observers toward plausible but incorrect conclusions.

The episode is a small but instructive illustration of how the Irish archaeological record is continually revised. Fulachtaí fia are among the most commonly identified prehistoric monument types in Ireland, numbering in the thousands, and their characteristic low, horseshoe-shaped mounds do bear a passing resemblance to the kind of spoil and disturbance left by quarrying. At Skehanagh, the grass simply grew back too well.