At Ahanaglogh in County Waterford, a low grass-covered mound sits near the foot of a south-facing slope, looking for all the world like a natural feature of the landscape. It is, in fact, the remains of a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in their thousands across Ireland and Britain. The mound itself measures roughly 21 metres north to south and 19 metres east to west, rising only between 0.6 and 0.8 metres at its highest point. Beneath the grass and clay is a dense mass of fire-cracked stones, the defining signature of this kind of site. The standard interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil, repeatedly, until whatever was being cooked, most likely meat, was ready. The shattered, heat-stressed stones were then raked aside, and over generations of use they accumulated into the characteristic horseshoe-shaped or subcircular mounds that survive today.

This particular example came to light during archaeological work tied to the realignment of the N25 road, when it was investigated as Area 6 of that project, recorded under excavation licence 98E0575. The excavation was partial rather than complete, meaning the full extent of the site remains unknown beneath the ground. Excavators found evidence of one trough, cut directly through the subsoil. Unusually, there was no trace of a wooden lining, which is sometimes preserved at such sites and can help establish construction techniques and date the activity. The absence here may reflect decay, local soil conditions, or simply that no lining was ever used. The researchers, Tierney, Noonan and Richardson, noted in their 2008 report that further troughs may yet await discovery in the unexcavated portions of the mound, leaving open questions about how intensively the site was used and over what period.