When topsoil was stripped during construction of the Bruff-Mallow gas pipeline in 1988, a horseshoe-shaped spread of burnt material came to light, measuring twenty metres in length and extending fifteen metres in from a fence line into the pipeline corridor. That distinctive shape is the calling card of a fulacht fia, a type of Bronze Age cooking place found in great numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough for boiling water, a hearth for heating stones, and a characteristic mound of discarded, fire-cracked material that builds up over repeated use.

Despite its extent across the surface, the burnt spread at Cloghlucas was only thirty centimetres deep when cut, suggesting either a relatively brief period of use or considerable truncation over time. Archaeologist M. Gowen, who recorded the site, observed that the ground configuration beyond the southern edge of the pipeline corridor implied the actual trough, the pit at the heart of such a site where heated stones were dropped into water to bring it to a boil, most likely lay further south, outside the strip that had been disturbed. In other words, the pipeline caught only the outer fringe of the site. Roughly fifty metres to the south, separate remains of a circular house and a hearth were also recorded, hinting at a small cluster of prehistoric activity in this part of north Cork, though the relationship between these features and the fulacht fia is not established.