Burnt mound, Knockaderry, Co. Waterford

Somewhere in the pasture at Knockaderry, towards the top of a north-facing slope in County Waterford, an archaeological site sits completely invisible at ground level. There is nothing to see, which is precisely what makes it interesting. Beneath the grass lies what is recorded as a fulacht fia, an ancient cooking site of a type found throughout Ireland, typically consisting of a horseshoe-shaped mound of fire-cracked stones and charcoal surrounding a trough. The method involved heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled pit to bring it to the boil, with the spent, shattered stones gradually accumulating into the characteristic mound. Thousands of these sites are known across Ireland, most dating to the Bronze Age, and yet they remain poorly understood in terms of exactly who used them, how regularly, and for what range of purposes.

What distinguishes Knockaderry is that two fulachta fia were recorded in close proximity here, noted together in the 1950s from a National Museum of Ireland file. The clustering of two such sites near one another is not unheard of, but it is unusual enough to prompt questions about repeated or prolonged use of this particular spot on the hillside. A further possible burnt mound lies adjacent to the northwest, suggesting the area may preserve a small concentration of related prehistoric activity. Whether all these features are contemporary with one another, or represent activity from different periods, is not recorded.