Fulacht fia

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in pasture, 140m W of the townland boundary with Fortetna. Not depicted on OS historic mapping. A megalithic structure (LI012-099----) lies 110m to ENE. Identified as Site No. 4 by Celie O’Rahilly in 1991 when it was described as following; ‘This site consists of a circular enclosure demarcated by dense scrub and bushes. There are stones around the perimeter which may represent an enclosure wall. Field clearance stones have also been added to this.’ The site was excavated by Cia Mc Conway (Licence No. 96E0379) in 1997 and the results were summarised as following; ‘The site is a low mound, 25m x 31m, with a heavy coverage of young elm trees and shrubs. There is a low, almost triangular platform to the immediate north-west of the mound and a discontinuous low grassy bank is visible along the western area of the site….Two trenches were hand-excavated in areas where the heavy tree cover would allow. Trench 1 ran for 4.7m in a north-south direction, up onto the top of the mound and to the immediate east of a partially exposed large boulder. Two distinct phases of archaeological activity were recorded. The first saw the deposition of burnt mound material, consisting of loose, heat shattered and burnt stone within a matrix of black, greasy, charcoal-stained, peat-like soil, creating a mound 1.16m high. This indicates the presence of a burnt mound, most probably a fulacht fiadh. At a later stage a second phases of activity occurred with the cutting of a shallow hollow or pit with a formalised stone kerbing found along the top of the mound, along w the southern edge of the trench. To the northern edge of the trench, the burnt mound material was overlain by a spread of larger unburned stones. This may represent an attempt to create a formal stone surface or cairn deposit around the perimeter of the mound material and may have been associated with the activity on the top of the mound. Trench 2 ran 4m in an east-west direction, cutting across a flattish area of ground with some protruding stone. Natural subsoil immediately underlay, a thin covering of topsoil along the western edge of the trench. Elsewhere a compact layer of unburned stone lay within a root medium-dark brown soil, infilling a man-made shallow cut. The stone measured 0.44m deep as it ran into the eastern baulk and created a relatively level surface. Without further excavation, it is impossible to establish whether this cut represented the eastern edge of a stone-filled, wide, shallow ditch or whether the stone layer create a type of platform' (Mc Conway 1998, 110-1).
Fulacht fiadh (Area C) excavated during monitoring (Licence No. 08E0171) of topsoil stripping along the route of a Limerick County Council water mains upgrade running from Adare to Patrickswell (MacLeod & Coshman 2008, 3). It consisted of approximately one fifth of a horseshoe-shaped burnt mound which had been partially excavated on the northern side by Cia Mc Conway, ADS Ltd (Excavations 1997, No. 326, 96E0379), during works on the N20 in 1996–7. The mound consisted of a substantial amount of heat-shattered stone in a matrix of charcoal-rich silt (ibid). Excavation revealed three pits beneath the mound that range in size from 2.3–2.4m long, 0.65–3.5m wide and 0.4–1m deep and which all contained similar burnt mound material (ibid, 6-7). The majority of the burnt-mound feature is preserved in situ to the N of the pipeline.

See attached location map and plan of excavated site taken from MacLeod & Coshman 2008

Compiled by: Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly

Date of upload: 10 August 2020

References

MacLeod, R. & Coshman, B. 2008 Monitoring report for the Adare to Patrickswell trunk main, Co. Limerick Unpublished report (Licence No. 08E0171), submitted by Headland Archaeology Ltd on behalf of Limerick County Council to the National Monuments Service.

O'Rahilly, C. 1991 Archaeological report on Limerick to Adare Road. Unpublished report submitted to Limerick County Council.

Mc Conway, C. 1997 Excavation of a Fulacht fiadh in Attyflin townland, Co. Limerick. Unpublished report (Licence No. 96E0379), submitted by Archaeological Development Services Ltd. on behalf of Limerick City Council to the National Monuments Service, Dúchas.

Mc Conway, C. 1998 Attyflin, fulacht fiadh. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 110-1 (Site No. 326). Bray. Wordwell.