Fulacht fia, Glanmane, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Glanmane, Co. Kerry

In the Glanmane valley in County Kerry, a low circular mound sits a few metres from the western bank of a northward-flowing stream.

It measures no more than five metres across, its outline barely readable in the turf, and most people would walk past it without a second thought. Beneath the grass, local information suggests, lies a spread of burnt stones, the characteristic signature of a fulacht fia.

A fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking site found widely across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough dug into the ground near a water source, a hearth for heating stones, and a mound of those same stones discarded after use. The stones, usually sandstone or similar, fracture and blacken when repeatedly heated and plunged into water, and it is exactly this scorched, cracked material that accumulates into the horseshoe or circular mounds still visible across the Irish landscape today. The Glanmane example was recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a survey that documented the extraordinary density of prehistoric and early historic remains across that part of west Kerry. The site's position beside a stream is entirely typical; water was central to how these sites functioned, and the proximity to a reliable source was not incidental but essential.

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Pete F
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