Fulacht fia, Lecarrow, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Lecarrow, Co. Mayo

On the eastern bank of a small meandering stream in Lecarrow, just above the flood plain and tucked into a sheltered hollow, sits a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt stone that has been quietly accumulating questions for several thousand years.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking or processing site found in great numbers across Ireland, typically identified by the characteristic crescent of fire-cracked stone left behind after repeated use. The mound here is well-defined and steep-sided, measuring roughly nine metres across in both directions and rising to a maximum height of about 0.65 metres, with its open end facing west towards the water. On the summits of its two arms, masses of burnt stone remain visible, the residue of a process in which stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it rapidly to the boil.

What makes the Lecarrow site particularly interesting is that it does not stand alone. Two further fulachtaí fia lie within 25 metres of it, one to the south-west and another to the north-north-west, suggesting that this stretch of streambank was used repeatedly and perhaps intensively over time. Overlooking all three, from the summit of a hillock about 21.5 metres to the west-south-west, sits a separate enclosure, a defined area bounded in some way, whose relationship to the cooking sites below remains a matter of interpretation. Whether the enclosure preceded, accompanied, or post-dated the fulachtaí fia is not recorded, but its position, looking down across the hollow and the stream, gives the whole cluster a sense of deliberate organisation. A small pit has also been excavated into the summit of the southern arm of the main mound, now grassed over, hinting at earlier archaeological investigation of the site.

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