Fulacht fia, Lecarrow, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Lecarrow, Co. Mayo

Beneath a thick blanket of Mayo peat, at the edge of a low-lying basin called Lough na bPoll, lies a modest oval mound that conceals something far older than its quiet, boggy setting suggests.

Scratch below the surface, and you reach a dense, impenetrable layer of angular stone, shattered by repeated heating and sudden cooling. This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found widely across Ireland and Britain, typically associated with the Bronze Age. The usual interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil, a method that would have been both practical and remarkably efficient. The mound itself is the accumulated debris of that process, centuries of discarded, fire-cracked stone piled up through repeated use.

This particular example sits at the south-eastern end of a flat peaty basin, with higher ground rising to the south-west, south, and east, a sheltered, low-lying position typical of where such sites are found, often near a reliable water source. The mound measures roughly 5.6 metres east to west and 4.3 metres north to south, rising to a maximum height of between 0.35 and 0.4 metres. A lunate, or crescent-shaped, depression on the south-south-western side is a common feature of fulachta fia, thought to mark where the trough once sat. The peat covering, up to 0.25 metres deep in places, has helped preserve the underlying stone layer intact. What makes the Lecarrow site quietly notable is that it does not stand alone: a second fulacht fia lies approximately 20 metres to the north-north-west, suggesting this particular corner of the bogland saw sustained, repeated activity rather than a single isolated episode of use.

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Pete F
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