Others vanish quietly beneath concrete and corrugated iron before anyone has had a proper look. At Aughris in County Sligo, a fulacht fia, one of those low, horseshoe-shaped mounds of burnt and shattered stone left behind by prehistoric cooking or industrial activity, was recorded beside a stream in rough pasture in 1990. Within three years, it was gone.

Fulachtaí fia are among the most common prehistoric monument types in Ireland, typically dating from the Bronze Age and usually found near water, since the method they represent involves heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it rapidly to the boil. Their proximity to streams is so consistent that it amounts to a diagnostic feature. The one at Aughris followed that pattern precisely, sitting alongside a local stream, until ground works were carried out and a farm shed erected on the site. When an inspection was made in 1993, no remains were visible at ground level. What had been a legible trace of prehistoric activity had been effectively erased in the interval between its first recording and any opportunity for closer study.