Fulacht fia, Uragh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Uragh, Co. Kerry

On the north-east bank of a river in the rough hill pasture of Uragh, a low crescent-shaped mound sits quietly in the landscape, its curved form and charred interior hinting at activities carried out here perhaps three or four thousand years ago.

The mound measures roughly six metres across in both directions and rises to about eighty centimetres, its sod covering a core of burnt and fire-cracked material. A small upright stone, just forty centimetres tall, protrudes from the western end of the mound's top, its purpose unrecorded. The opening of the crescent, around 1.6 metres wide, faces south-west, directly towards the river, and the riverward edge has been worn away by erosion over time.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of Bronze Age cooking or processing site found in very large numbers across Ireland. The typical arrangement involved heating stones in a fire until they were extremely hot, then dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil. The shattered, heat-spent stones were discarded in a heap beside the trough, and it is these accumulations of blackened, fragmented stone that form the distinctive horseshoe or crescent mounds still visible today. The siting of the Uragh example beside a river follows the standard pattern, since a reliable water source was essential to the process. What makes this particular location quietly notable is that it does not stand alone: a second possible fulacht fia lies immediately to the south-east, and a third has been identified to the west, suggesting that this stretch of riverbank saw repeated or concurrent use across the prehistoric period.

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Pete F
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