It is easy to mistake for a natural rise in the ground, or to miss entirely. But the horseshoe shape, roughly 28.5 metres long and 14 metres wide with its opening facing east, is the characteristic signature of a fulacht fia, one of the most common yet least understood monument types in the Irish landscape.

A fulacht fia is, in essence, an ancient cooking or heating site. The typical interpretation is that prehistoric people would fill a timber-lined trough with water, then heat stones in a fire and drop them into the trough until the water boiled, cooking meat or serving some other heat-related purpose. The burnt and shattered stones were raked aside after each use, gradually accumulating into the mound that survives today. This particular example was among three such sites recorded on J. Daly's land by Bowman in 1934, a cluster that suggests the area saw repeated or prolonged use rather than a single isolated episode. The three are described as levelled, meaning their original profiles have been reduced over time, likely through centuries of agricultural activity. The site sits approximately 120 metres south of St Finntan's well, a proximity that is unlikely to be coincidental given that a reliable water source would have been essential to the whole process.