But the burnt mound at Ballyclogh, Co. Wicklow belongs to a category of prehistoric site that turns up with surprising frequency across Ireland, and whose purpose still prompts genuine debate among archaeologists.

Burnt mounds, sometimes called fulacht fiadh, are among the most common archaeological monuments in the Irish landscape. They are typically crescentic heaps of shattered, heat-fractured stone, built up over time beside a pit or trough that was used to heat water by dropping fire-heated stones into it. The stones crack under the thermal stress, and the discarded fragments accumulate into the distinctive mound shape. Most date to the Bronze Age, broadly the period from around 2000 to 600 BC, and interpretations of their function range from cooking sites to saunas to craft-working areas. The Ballyclogh example was uncovered during the N11 road improvement scheme and excavated by archaeologist Yvonne Whitty. What made it slightly unusual within its type was the absence of any identifiable trough, the pit or wooden vessel that typically forms the functional heart of such a site. Whether the trough was simply too degraded to survive, or was never present in a form that left traces, the excavation could not determine. What it did recover were two unmodified flint flakes of Bronze Age type, small worked fragments of flint that, while not dramatically shaped into tools, are consistent with the period and help anchor the site chronologically.