At Ballygowloge in County Kerry, workers cutting drainage channels near the River Feale found something rather older: a deposit of black permeable gravel consistent with the burnt and scorched material left behind by a fulacht fia.

A fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking site, found in large numbers across Ireland and dating most commonly to the Bronze Age. The typical remains are a mound of fire-cracked stone and charcoal-darkened earth, left over from 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 dark, heat-altered gravel at Ballygowloge fits this pattern. It was observed in a trench along the southern edge of a narrow strip of woodland, roughly a hundred metres north of the River Feale, a location that would have made practical sense to anyone needing a ready water supply. The proximity to a river is characteristic; fulachtaí fia are frequently found close to streams or wetland edges, precisely because the method depends on a constant source of water.