Somewhere beneath a field of pasture grass lies the ghost of a fulacht fia, one of Ireland's most common yet least understood prehistoric monument types, and it survives only as a memory in the soil. The sole evidence of its existence came not from excavation or survey but from the plough, which turned up a scatter of burnt material and prompted someone, at some point, to mention it to the right person.

A fulacht fia, sometimes called a burnt mound, is typically a horseshoe-shaped heap of heat-shattered stone and charcoal, usually found near water. The stones were heated in a fire and dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil, a process thought to relate to cooking, though some researchers have proposed uses ranging from textile preparation to bathing. They are Bronze Age in the main, and they are extraordinarily numerous across Ireland, particularly in Cork, where hundreds have been recorded. Most survive as low, dark mounds in damp ground. This one does not survive at all above the surface. The burnt spread noted during ploughing suggests the mound has been entirely flattened by centuries of agricultural activity, leaving only the discoloured, charcoal-flecked earth that once lay beneath it.