But this patch of scorched earth and shattered stone near Foulkscourt, Co. Kilkenny, belongs to a category of prehistoric site that turns up with remarkable frequency across the Irish landscape, and whose precise purpose remains, after decades of study, genuinely contested.

The site is one of a tight cluster of eight related features, comprising five fulachta fia and three burnt mounds, all uncovered together in 2006 during excavations ahead of the M8/N8 Cullahill to Cashel Road Improvement Scheme. A fulacht fia, broadly speaking, is a prehistoric cooking or processing site, typically identified by a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stone beside a trough; the stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into water to bring it to the boil. The burnt mound here is a related but slightly distinct feature, essentially the accumulated debris of that same process. What makes the Foulkscourt site particularly interesting is the density of the cluster: eight such features in close proximity suggests sustained, repeated activity in this stretch of the Kilkenny countryside over a considerable period. The material recovered from this specific spread included occasional burnt stone and charcoal, consistent with the standard profile of such sites. Less expected were the post-medieval pottery sherds and fragments of bottle glass found within the same layers, a reminder that these ancient accumulations were not sealed off from later human activity and that the ground here continued to be used and disturbed long after the prehistoric fires went cold.