It is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in large numbers across Ireland, and its very ordinariness is part of what makes it interesting. These sites typically consist of a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone, the accumulated debris of a process in which stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil. The method works remarkably well, and experimental archaeology has shown that a substantial volume of water can be brought to a full boil in under half an hour using this technique.

What makes the Farrangeel site quietly notable is that it does not stand alone. A second fulacht fia lies approximately seventy metres to the south-east, suggesting that this small area of north Cork was returned to repeatedly, or used concurrently, during the Bronze Age period when the majority of such sites were in use. The spread of burnt material at Farrangeel is now grass-covered, absorbed into the pastoral landscape so thoroughly that a person walking the field would likely pass it without a second glance. Yet beneath the turf is the physical residue of repeated fire-lighting, stone-heating, and the slow accumulation of cracked and blackened rock that characterises fulachta fia across the country.