Fulacht fia, Curraghadobbin, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Settlement Sites
Beneath a south-facing slope in the gently rolling landscape of Curraghadobbin, County Tipperary, lies a fulacht fia that offers nothing whatsoever to the naked eye.
The ground above it is ordinary grass, the terrain quietly unremarkable, and there is no visible trace of what lies underneath. That invisibility is, in a way, the point.
A fulacht fia is a type of ancient cooking site found widely across Ireland, typically consisting of a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and fire-cracked stone beside a trough, which would once have been filled with water and heated using hot stones. They date broadly to the Bronze Age, though some examples span a wider period, and their precise function has been debated, with cooking, brewing, and bathing all proposed at various times. The example at Curraghadobbin was identified by Will Forbes, and it sits on a south-facing slope in terrain that slopes and rolls gently around it. Whatever mounding or depression once marked the site at surface level has since been absorbed back into the landscape, leaving the monument entirely concealed beneath the turf.