The example uncovered at Clogh East in County Limerick does something different. Here, in the absence of any nearby watercourse, whoever used this site dug straight down through the earth until they hit the water table, creating a well of extraordinary dimensions: roughly 8 to 9 metres across and 3.5 metres deep, its base cut into bedrock to a flat floor just 1.5 metres square. Steps were worked into the sides to allow access, and stake-holes suggest that handrails or similar supports lined the descent. A small platform on the southern side, defined by five stake-holes, may once have held a shelter over the opening. It is, by any measure, a remarkable amount of effort for what is typically characterised as a simple cooking or processing site.

The site came to light during excavations directed by Kate Taylor as part of Bord Gáis Éireann's Pipeline to the West project, which opened a long corridor through the Limerick landscape and exposed numerous buried features. A fulacht fia, to put it plainly, is a prehistoric or early medieval cooking place: stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil, and the repeated fracturing of those stones through thermal shock produced the characteristic spreads of dark, crumbly material still visible as low mounds in fields across Ireland. At Clogh East, the total volume of burnt and fragmented stone recovered from the features and surface spread was approximately 80 cubic metres, pointing to prolonged and repeated use of the site. The landowner had noted black material appearing in the soil of an adjacent field on the one occasion it had been ploughed within living memory, suggesting the spread extended a further 10 to 20 metres beyond the excavated area. Among the few artefacts recovered was a copper-alloy crutch-headed stick-pin, found at the centre of the well, with parallels dating to the late 10th to 12th centuries, which may eventually help pin down at least one phase of the site's use alongside radiocarbon dates from charcoal and bone samples.

The site itself is not publicly accessible in any formal sense; it was recorded and excavated ahead of pipeline construction, and the ground above it has since been returned to agricultural use. Those with a particular interest in the excavation record can consult the full report through excavations.ie, where the original site description is archived. The broader area of south County Limerick does contain other recorded monuments worth seeking out, and anyone curious about fulachta fia as a type would do well to read around the ongoing scholarly debate about their function, which extends well beyond cooking to include possibilities such as textile processing, bathing, and brewing. The Clogh East well, with its engineered descent and apparent working infrastructure, adds a quietly awkward piece of evidence to that conversation.