But what archaeologists uncovered in a field at Oxpark, on the edge of Cloughjordan in County Tipperary, was a remnant of prehistoric activity that had quietly survived beneath the soil for thousands of years. Described technically as a burnt spread, the deposit measured roughly six by seven metres and consisted of heat-shattered limestone fragments packed into a charcoal-enriched dark-brown peat matrix. It is, in essence, the faint echo of a fire, the residue left behind after repeated heating and cooling of stone.

The find came to light in 2006, when archaeologist Emer Dennehy carried out test trenching across a 67-acre site earmarked for what would become one of Ireland's more unusual modern settlements, an intentional eco-village planned to include 133 residential units alongside managed woodland and agricultural land. Over the course of the investigation, some 2,184 linear metres of trenches were opened. The burnt spread, designated Site 3, was located 80 metres south-west of two fulachta fiadh, the plural of fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or industrial site typically associated with troughs of water heated by fire-cracked stones. The clustering of these sites is telling. Two fulachta fiadh lay within 110 metres of the spread, and the surrounding landscape had already yielded a medieval moated site, the remains of Cloughjordan Castle, a possibly prehistoric enclosure, a late Bronze Age or Early Iron Age ring-barrow, and what may be a post-medieval blast furnace. The burnt spread itself was fully excavated during a four-week period in June and July 2006, leaving nothing in situ. Whether it represents a diminished fulacht fia, a satellite activity area, or something else entirely is not entirely clear, which is part of what makes it interesting.