Fulacht fia, Liscarroll, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Liscarroll, Co. Cork

A low, grass-covered mound sitting in waterlogged grazing land near Liscarroll in north Cork does not announce itself as anything remarkable.

It measures roughly eight metres by six, rises only about a quarter of a metre above the surrounding ground, and to a passing eye would read as little more than a slight swelling in the field. What lies beneath that gentle hump, however, is a fulacht fia, one of Ireland's most widespread yet persistently mysterious monument types. These are the scorched remnants of Bronze Age cooking sites, where stones were heated in fire and then plunged into water-filled troughs to bring the liquid to a boil, leaving behind a tell-tale crescent or horseshoe-shaped mound of cracked and blackened rock.

The site sits roughly twenty metres east of a stream, which is entirely typical. Fulachtaí fia cluster near water almost without exception, since a reliable water source was essential to the process, and low-lying or waterlogged ground tends to preserve the burnt material well over several thousand years. What makes this particular spot quietly interesting is that it does not sit alone. Another fulacht fia lies approximately two hundred and thirty metres to the north-east, suggesting that this stretch of north Cork was a place of repeated, deliberate activity rather than a single isolated episode. Whether the two sites were in use at the same time or represent different phases of occupation in the same general area is the kind of question the landscape itself cannot answer without excavation.

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Pete F
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