When work began on upgrading the N2 between Monaghan and Emyvale, archaeological testing on the route revealed a pit packed with heat-shattered stone and charcoal on an east-facing drumlin slope near Carrigans. What looked, at first pass, like a modest anomaly in the ground turned out to be the remains of a fulacht fia, one of those low, horseshoe-shaped spreads of fire-cracked stone that are among the most frequently encountered prehistoric features in the Irish landscape. The term refers broadly to a burnt mound site, typically associated with the heating of water by dropping fire-heated stones into a trough, though whether they were used primarily for cooking, bathing, textile processing, or some combination of these remains a matter of ongoing discussion among archaeologists.

Full excavation of the site recorded two features: a rectangular trough measuring 1.72 metres by 1.10 metres, with stake-holes at each corner suggesting a wooden lining or frame, and a smaller oval pit nearby measuring 0.77 metres by 0.6 metres. Both were filled with burnt stone set in clay matrices containing charcoal. No artefacts were recovered, which is fairly typical for this class of site, but a sample of hazel charcoal taken from the trough was submitted for radiocarbon dating. The result placed activity here at 2944 BP, calibrating to between 1259 and 1046 BC, firmly within the Irish Bronze Age. Someone was using this slope, with its drumlin backdrop and whatever water source once ran nearby, for purposes that left behind only fire, stone, and the faint ghost of a wooden structure.