Fulacht fia, Ardgroom Outward, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Ardgroom Outward, Co. Cork

On the lower slopes of Tooreennamna Mountain in west Cork, a low horseshoe-shaped mound sits quietly in rough hill pasture beside a stream, its shape largely unchanged since the Bronze Age.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of ancient cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a mound of fire-cracked stones accumulated beside a water source, with a trough nearby that would have been filled with water and heated using stones thrown from a fire. This particular example measures roughly 7.5 metres north to south and 7.1 metres east to west, rising to a height of about 1.2 metres, with its characteristic opening, around 2.4 metres wide, facing west.

What makes the site quietly legible today is largely the work of sheep. Animals grazing the hillside have worn paths across the mound, and in doing so have exposed two of its defining features: heat-shattered stones, fractured by repeated cycles of heating and rapid cooling, and charcoal-enriched soil, the dark residue of fires lit here perhaps three or four thousand years ago. The mound sits on the east bank of a stream on the north-facing slopes of the mountain, a location that fits the general pattern of fulachtaí fia, which are almost always found close to a water source, often in low-lying or marginal ground.

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