It is the kind of feature that could easily be mistaken for a natural rise in the landscape, yet its particular form, with an opening facing east, marks it out as something far older and more deliberate.

What lies here is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, particularly in low-lying or marshy ground. The basic principle was straightforward: a trough, usually timber-lined or stone-lined, was filled with water, and stones heated in a nearby fire were dropped in to bring the water to a boil. The crescent or kidney-shaped mound that survives at Ballynamaddree is the accumulated debris of that process, made up of fire-cracked and shattered stones that were discarded after repeated heating. Most fulachta fia date to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though examples from other periods are known. The mound here measures approximately 22 metres north to south and 20 metres east to west, making it a reasonably substantial example, and the waterlogged conditions of the site are entirely characteristic; these monuments are almost always found near water sources or in naturally wet ground, which was essential to their function.