They are neither. These are the workings of a charcoal-making industry, and there are a great many of them: at least seventy-five platforms recorded on the northern and southern sides of the Upper Lake alone, with a further forty identified to the west and south-west of Reefert Church.

Charcoal was produced on flat, circular or oval platforms called hearths or pitsteads, where stacked timber was covered with turf or earth and burned slowly over several days to drive off moisture and volatile compounds, leaving behind the dense carbon fuel needed for smelting and smithing. The platforms here measure roughly nine metres by six metres, sizeable workings that suggest organised, repeated production rather than occasional domestic burning. They sit at irregular intervals across the landscape, a pattern consistent with charcoal operations that moved through available woodland rather than fixing permanently in one spot. The area around Glendalough had long supported metalworking activity connected with its monastic settlement, and the presence of these features in the vicinity of Reefert Church, one of the ecclesiastical sites within the valley, hints at the industrial underpinning of that religious community. The platforms were noted by Ua Riain in 1940 and subsequently recorded by Healy in 1972, suggesting the features were visible and identifiable across several decades of fieldwork.