The discovery was accidental: during landscaping work, a grass-covered spread of burnt material surfaced, the characteristic calling card of a fulacht fia.

A fulacht fia is a type of ancient outdoor cooking place found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically Bronze Age in origin. The usual method involved heating stones in a fire until they were red-hot, then dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. The cracked and shattered stones were discarded after use, accumulating over time into a horseshoe-shaped mound of heat-fractured rock and dark, charcoal-flecked earth. It is exactly this kind of spread, scorched and compacted, that turned up in the Knockaneda garden. The site now sits quietly under grass, unremarked upon by anyone passing the house, its prehistoric origins entirely invisible from the road.