But at Reacaslagh, that routine piece of agricultural work broke through the surface of something considerably older: a fulacht fia, one of the most common yet persistently puzzling monument types in the Irish prehistoric landscape.

A fulacht fia is, in essence, the remains of an ancient cooking site, typically consisting of a mound of cracked and fire-shattered stone discarded beside a trough or pit in which water was heated by dropping in fire-reddened stones. They are found by the thousands across Ireland, most dating to the Bronze Age. The Reacaslagh example came to archaeological attention in 1987, when the Castleisland District Archaeological Survey recorded what the landowner had turned up during drainage work: burnt black earth and burnt shattered red stone, the characteristic debris of repeated high-temperature use. The material was found to extend to a depth of 1.2 metres in the western side of the drain, suggesting a substantial accumulation built up over time. A low mound, running east to west from the western side of the drain, stretches for 7.3 metres, its profile still legible in the field despite the disturbance.