This was a fulacht fia, a type of ancient outdoor cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough dug into wet ground, a nearby hearth for heating stones, and the gradually growing mound of discarded, heat-shattered rock that gives these sites their characteristic shape. The Gowlane example was modest in scale, roughly seven and a half metres long, just over three metres wide, and standing to about ninety centimetres in height, with its open end facing west.

When it was recorded in 1982, the site lay approximately fourteen metres south of a second fulacht fia, a proximity that suggests the area saw repeated or extended use over time. Such clustering is not unusual; suitable marshy ground, with its ready water supply, drew people back to the same spots across generations. The Gowlane mound did not survive long after it was documented. Drainage works in 1986 levelled it entirely, leaving the 1982 record as the only substantial account of what had been there. What had persisted quietly in the boggy ground for perhaps three or four thousand years was gone within a few years of being formally noticed.