It measures nine metres long, eight metres wide, and just over half a metre high, modest dimensions that give little away. What lies beneath the overgrowth is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, recognised by the dark, crescent-shaped or irregular mounds of heat-shattered stone and charcoal they leave behind. The stones were heated in a fire and dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil, a process repeated until the stones cracked and became useless, accumulating over time into the mound that survives today.

What makes the Coolowen site quietly notable is that it does not stand alone. A second fulacht fia lies roughly twenty metres to the north, the two sites close enough to suggest repeated use of the same patch of ground, or perhaps overlapping episodes of activity across generations. Fulachtaí fia are generally dated to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some sites in Ireland have produced earlier or later dates. Their concentration in certain landscapes, often near wetlands or watercourses, points to a deliberate relationship with water sources, which were essential to the whole process. Finding two within easy walking distance of each other at Coolowen fits a pattern seen elsewhere in Cork and across the country, where clusters of these sites hint at places that held some longer-term practical or communal significance.