These features, known as fulachtaí fia, are found in their thousands across the island, and yet each one still raises the same basic question: who lit the fire here, and why?

A fulacht fia works on a simple but effective principle. A trough, usually timber-lined or stone-lined and dug into the ground near a water source, was filled with water. Stones were heated in a nearby fire and then dropped into the trough, bringing the water to a boil. The cracked and shattered stones, spent after repeated heating and quenching, were piled to one side, and over time those dumps of burnt stone became the horseshoe-shaped mounds that archaeologists identify today. Most fulachtaí fia in Ireland date to the Bronze Age, roughly 2000 to 500 BC, though some were in use earlier or later. The site at Miles is one such monument, recorded but not yet fully documented in the public record.