And yet that ordinariness is precisely what makes it worth pausing over.

A fulacht fia is a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough, a hearth, and a mound of fire-cracked, heat-shattered stones. They were in use for much of the Bronze Age, and the burnt, blackened stone that characterises them is almost impossible to miss once you know what you are looking at. At Ballingarry, a scatter of similar burnt material was found close to the main exposure, suggesting the site once extended further. What gives this particular fulacht fia its quiet strangeness is its relationship with the motte beside it. A motte is the raised earthen mound at the core of an early Norman fortification, constructed in Ireland from the late twelfth century onwards. The fact that the fulacht fia was found beneath the motte's eroding base means the prehistoric site was already ancient when the Normans arrived and began reshaping the landscape around it. The medieval earthwork had, entirely without ceremony, been built on top of something far older.