Fulacht fia, Grange, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Grange, Co. Wexford

In the townland of Grange in County Wexford, a low mound sits on the south-western bank of a small stream, largely swallowed by furze and easy to miss entirely.

It is the kind of site that rewards patience more than spectacle. What makes it quietly significant is what it represents: a fulacht fia, the term used for the horseshoe or rectangular burnt mounds found across Ireland in their thousands, most dating to the Bronze Age. The working theory is that these sites were used for cooking, with water heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into a trough until it boiled. The cracked and discarded stones accumulated over time into the characteristic mound shape that survives today.

This particular example was recorded in 1940 on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, and at that time a field description noted a rectangular mound measuring roughly 4.5 metres along its north-west to south-east axis, about 2.4 metres across, and standing to a height of approximately 1.8 metres. It backed directly onto the stream, which would have supplied the water essential to the cooking process, and there was a noticeable indentation on the south-western side, possibly the remnant of the trough where heated stones were plunged into water. The surrounding vegetation was described as impenetrable furze, which suggests the mound had been left undisturbed for a considerable period even by the time it was formally noted.

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