Fulacht fia, Gearhanagoul, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Gearhanagoul, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope above the Coomeelan stream in County Kerry, a kidney-shaped mound of burnt stone sits half-submerged in bog, measuring roughly five metres east to west and rising less than a metre above the surrounding ground.

It is, to most eyes, an unremarkable hump in rough hill pasture. But it is a fulacht fia, a type of site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, representing Bronze Age cooking places where stones were heated in fire and then dropped into water-filled troughs to bring them to the boil. The characteristic mound that remains is the accumulated debris of those stones, cracked and blackened from repeated heating, discarded once they were too fractured to be useful.

This particular example at Gearhanagoul sits on the west bank of the Coomeelan stream, within a landscape that still carries the traces of much older land use. Relict field boundaries, the low earthen remnants of long-abandoned agricultural systems, run through the same hillside, suggesting this corner of Kerry was once considerably more managed and inhabited than its current rough pasture might suggest. The mound itself is slightly indented along its northern side, and burnt material is visible at the eastern edge where erosion or disturbance has exposed the interior. Roughly thirty-five metres to the south, a second fulacht fia sits in the same valley, which is not unusual. These sites frequently cluster near reliable water sources, and a stream like the Coomeelan would have made this slope a practical location for repeated use over generations.

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Pete F
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