Fulacht fia, Castle-Park, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Castle-Park, Co. Cork

Beneath the tarmac and garden fences of a housing estate in Castle-Park, Co. Cork, there is a prehistoric cooking site that nobody living there is likely to know about.

It leaves no trace on the surface, no marker, no visible depression in the ground, nothing to suggest that the ordinary domestic landscape overhead has any particular depth to it.

The feature in question is a fulacht fia, a type of site found in considerable numbers across Ireland and dating broadly to the Bronze Age, though some examples are later. The term refers to a mound of burnt and fire-cracked stone, typically gathered around a wood-lined or stone-lined trough sunk into the ground. The accepted interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into the water-filled trough to bring it to boiling point, most likely for cooking meat. The Castle-Park example came to light during construction of the housing estate, when a stone-lined trough of exactly this kind was uncovered. Local information recorded the find, but the development proceeded, and the site now lies buried, with no visible surface trace remaining.

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Pete F
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