Fulacht fia, Kilbane, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Settlement Sites
A scatter of heat-shattered stone in a field beside a suburban road is not the most obvious thing to stop for, yet what was found on the north side of Schoolhouse Road in Castletroy tells a story about cooking, labour, and repeated use that stretches back thousands of years.
This is the site of a fulacht fia, a type of ancient cooking place found in great numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough filled with water that was heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into it. The cracked and blackened stones, discarded into a characteristic mound after use, are often the only surviving trace. Here, the mound was modest, a black silty spread roughly 10.5 metres by 8.5 metres and only about 0.2 metres deep, but its contents left little doubt about its purpose.
The site came to light not through any planned excavation but through the routine archaeological monitoring that accompanies development in Ireland. In 2003, Flor Hurley was overseeing groundworks for a housing scheme called Glantan when the spread of burnt material was noticed. It had never appeared on any Ordnance Survey historic mapping, which is itself telling; many fulachtaí fia survive only as low, grass-covered mounds that draw no particular attention until a machine cuts into them. Hurley's find prompted a full excavation later that year, carried out by Niamh O'Callaghan under licence. In what was designated Area 7, the excavation uncovered two large shallow rectangular features interpreted as possible troughs, along with five small circular pits, all of them filled with heat-shattered stone beneath the burnt spread. The site sat approximately five metres from a small stream, exactly the kind of proximity to water that fulachtaí fia almost invariably share. A second example, recorded as FF3, was identified as a direct result of the work, suggesting this stretch of gentle south-south-west-facing slope saw repeated use across time.
The site lies in pasture on the northern edge of Schoolhouse Road in Castletroy, an area that has seen considerable development in recent decades on the southern fringes of Limerick city. There is no formal visitor infrastructure, and much of the surrounding landscape has been altered by the housing schemes that prompted the original monitoring. The archaeological record is preserved in O'Callaghan's published report from 2006 and in the monitoring documentation produced by Hurley, which includes a plan extract showing the extent of the spread. For those interested in the mechanics of the discovery rather than the site itself, the archive is the more rewarding destination.