Fulacht fia, Tombrickane, Co. Tipperary

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Tombrickane, Co. Tipperary

On the edge of bogland in Tombrickane, Co. Tipperary, a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone rises about one and a half metres from the ground.

It measures roughly ten metres north to south and twelve east to west, with a shallow depression set into its southern face. This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough dug into the ground, a hearth nearby, and a crescentic mound of fire-cracked stones that accumulated as heated rocks were discarded after each use. The horseshoe shape is characteristic: the open end faces the depression where the trough would have sat.

What makes this particular site quietly interesting is its setting and its company. It sits on low-lying, poorly drained ground with bog stretching away to the north and better-drained pasture to the south, a landscape that would have provided both the water supply these sites required and the fuel available from the surrounding wetland. Four metres to the south lies a smaller fulacht, and both are part of a group of three in the immediate area. Clusters like this suggest repeated, possibly seasonal use of the same patch of ground over an extended period, though the broader chronology of activity here is not recorded. The site was documented in the Archaeological Inventory of County Tipperary, volume one, compiled by Jean Farrelly and Caimin O'Brien and published in 2002.

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Pete F
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