Fulacht fia, Rathmore, Co. Longford

Co. Longford |

Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Rathmore, Co. Longford

In a waterlogged pasture near Rathmore in County Longford, a low grass-covered mound sits quietly in the landscape, looking at first glance like little more than a slight rise in the ground.

It is, in fact, the surviving remains of a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in large numbers across Ireland, typically dating to the Bronze Age. These sites share a consistent form: a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and shattered stone, built up over time beside a water source or in naturally wet ground, with a trough nearby where water was heated by dropping fire-cracked stones into it.

The mound here measures roughly 11.8 metres east to west and 11.5 metres north to south, rising between half a metre and just under a metre in height. It is composed of fragmented burnt stone set within a matrix of blackened soil, the accumulated debris of repeated use. At the north-north-west edge of the mound, a shallow depression marks where the trough once sat, a roughly oval hollow measuring around 3.4 metres by 2.6 metres and reaching a maximum depth of 0.4 metres. The poorly drained character of the surrounding pasture is itself typical of fulacht fia locations; these sites almost always occupy low-lying, wet ground where water was naturally close to the surface and easily accessible.

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