Fulacht fia, Curraghadobbin, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Settlement Sites
Along a stretch of the Clasha River in County Tipperary, a cluster of low mounds sits in reclaimed agricultural land, their significance quietly uncertain.
These earthworks may be fulachta fiadha, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically identified by a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt, fire-cracked stone surrounding a timber-lined trough. The mounds here, however, fit the description loosely at best. They are low, irregular, and spread across the floodplain in a way that makes them difficult to read with confidence. None show the clear trough that archaeologists consider the definitive marker of the type.
Eleven potential fulachta fiadha along this particular river stretch were identified by a researcher named Will Forbes, and the site at Curraghadobbin falls within that broader concentration. The mounds vary considerably in size, ranging from roughly 17 metres in diameter to one that extends over 51 metres by 32 metres, with heights as modest as 0.2 metres in some cases. That flattening is itself part of the problem. The Clasha River has been canalised, and the surrounding fields have been reclaimed, meaning the landscape has been substantially altered from whatever it looked like when these features formed. It is entirely possible that some of the mounds are simply natural rises in low-lying ground rather than archaeological remains at all. The ambiguity is genuine, not merely cautious phrasing.