Fulacht fia, Coill Bhaile Uí Fhlaithimh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the lower north-north-western slopes of Cummeen mountain, on rough boggy ground in County Kerry, there sits a large horseshoe-shaped mound that is slightly ambiguous about what it actually is.
It is recorded as a fulacht fia, the Irish term for a type of prehistoric cooking site, typically identified by a crescent or horseshoe mound of burnt and fire-cracked stones accumulated beside a water trough. The cooking method involved heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled pit until the water boiled, a surprisingly efficient technique that left behind the characteristic burnt mounds found across Ireland in their thousands. This one, however, raises questions that the bog ground does not quite answer.
The mound is substantial, measuring roughly 17.9 metres east to west and 12 metres north to south, rising about 2 metres above the surrounding ground. The open, western side of the horseshoe has a gap just 0.6 metres wide between the two arms, lined on either side with boulder revetment, a facing of large stones used to stabilise or define a structure. A few more boulders appear along the inner and outer flanks and at the northern edge of the interior. Just outside the gap, the ground rises slightly over a distance of about 4 metres, and within that raised area sits a shallow hollow, 2 metres by 1.5 metres. The suggestion, recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, is that this raised area may represent material scooped out of the mound at some later point, perhaps to adapt the space as an animal pen or a rudimentary shelter. Burnt and fire-cracked stones are visible in the mound's fabric, but whether these are original to a prehistoric cooking site or simply the residue of more recent vegetation burning is not clear.
What makes this site quietly interesting is precisely that layered uncertainty. The boulder revetment, the enclosed interior, the hollowed-out area near the entrance, all suggest that the mound may have had more than one life, shifting from one practical purpose to another across a span of time that the boggy ground keeps to itself.