Fulacht fia, Ceapaigh Na Gcrann, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a low ridge separating two Kerry loughs, Derriana and Cloonaghlin, three ancient cooking sites sit quietly beside a small stream, their horseshoe shapes still legible in the landscape after perhaps three thousand years.
These are fulachta fiadh, a type of prehistoric cooking monument found widely across Ireland, typically consisting of a mound of fire-cracked stone built up beside a water source. The method involved heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough until the water boiled, then using that heat to cook meat. Over repeated use, the spent, shattered stones were raked out and piled around the trough, gradually forming the characteristic crescent mound. Here, the mounds are not merely surviving shapes in the ground; the composition of at least the westernmost is clearly visible, its fabric a mixture of earth, charcoal flecks and nodules, and quantities of fire-shattered stone.
The three sites are grouped closely together on the southern side of the stream, which would have been essential to their function. The westernmost mound is roughly 9.7 metres in overall diameter and stands 1.1 metres high, its U-shaped central depression still measurable at around four metres across. Large upright stone slabs protrude from the base of its southern side. Immediately to the east sits a second, larger and more irregularly shaped mound, approximately 13 metres in diameter, with a small flat-topped rise partly closing off its open northern end and two gaps at the southwest and southeast that appear to be of recent, rather than prehistoric, origin. A third horseshoe-shaped mound lies around 12 metres further east, slightly smaller, open to the northwest, with its own central depression intact. All three sit within a complex of old field walls, suggesting the area has seen successive phases of human use across a long span of time.