It is easy to overlook, barely more than a slight rise in the ground, but its horseshoe shape and the burnt material packed into it point to something far older and more deliberate than a natural feature of the landscape.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically dating from the Bronze Age. The usual interpretation involves a trough dug into the ground, filled with water, and heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into it until the water boiled. The shattered, blackened stones were then raked out and piled around the trough, which is precisely what produces the characteristic horseshoe-shaped mound seen at sites like this one. The Coolflugh example measures 7.7 metres wide and stands 0.65 metres high, its opening facing south, and it sits on the east side of a stream. The proximity to both running water and a named well suggests the location was chosen with care; reliable water was not incidental to how these places worked, it was central to them.