On a steep south-facing slope above the upper Araglin valley in County Waterford, a low grass-covered mound sits quietly within an ancient field system. It is horseshoe-shaped, open at one end, and barely a metre high at its tallest point. Most people would walk past it without a second thought. But the shape is the clue: this is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in great numbers across Ireland, and it has been sitting here since the Bronze Age.

A fulacht fia, broadly speaking, consists of a mound of fire-cracked stones arranged around a trough, usually timber-lined and dug to hold water. The typical method was to heat stones in a fire and drop them into the trough until the water boiled, then use the hot water for cooking, or possibly for other purposes including bathing or textile processing. Over time, the spent, shattered stones accumulate into the characteristic U-shaped or horseshoe mound that survives today. This example measures roughly 15 metres along its longer axis and 11.5 metres across, with the trough area, at 4.5 metres by 2.6 metres, opening to the north-west. It sits within a broader field system on the north side of the Araglin valley, which runs through the Monavullagh Mountains in western Waterford. Michael Moore, who examined this part of the landscape in research published in 1995, identified the area as a Bronze Age settlement and ritual centre, suggesting that this fulacht fia was not an isolated feature but part of a more substantial prehistoric presence in these uplands.