Fulacht fia, Coolatoosane, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Coolatoosane, Co. Kerry

Beside a well in Coolatoosane, a low scatter of burnt and fire-shattered stones marks a site that has been quietly losing its shape for some time.

It is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking place found widely across Ireland, typically consisting of a mound of heat-cracked stones accumulated beside a trough or water source where liquids were brought to the boil using repeatedly heated rocks. This particular example is modest in scale, rising to just fifteen centimetres at its highest point and measuring roughly three metres along its longest axis. What makes it worth noting is less its size than its condition: the mound has been substantially altered, its original form distorted by the construction of steps leading down to the adjacent well and by a fieldbank cutting across the site in a north-west to south-east direction.

The proximity to a well is not coincidental. Fulachtaí fia depend on a reliable water source, and the same spring or natural well that served a Bronze Age community may well have continued drawing people to the spot across the centuries, eventually prompting the construction of steps and the reorganisation of the surrounding land. That layering of use, one generation's practical site becoming another's obstacle or afterthought, is what has left this mound in its current compressed and altered state. The site was documented by C. Toal in the North Kerry Archaeological Survey, published in 1995 through Brandon in association with FÁS, which remains a key reference for prehistoric remains across this part of the county.

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Pete F
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