What once stood here was a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically identified by a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone beside a water source. The mound at Curragh is gone, levelled around 1980 according to local memory, but the scorched material along the stream bank remains, a faint chemical signature of repeated, ancient fire.

Fulachtaí fia (the plural form) are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, with thousands recorded across the country, yet they remain somewhat enigmatic. The working theory is that they functioned as cooking sites, most likely during the Bronze Age: water was drawn or channelled into a trough, stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into the water to bring it to the boil, and the cracked, heat-spent stones were piled to the side after each use. That accumulated pile of fractured, fire-blackened stone is the mound. Some researchers have proposed alternative uses, including bathing, textile processing, or brewing, but cooking remains the most widely accepted explanation. The site at Curragh fits the classic profile in terms of its position beside a stream, the ready water supply being essential to the whole process.