Fulacht fia

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in enclosed land at the foot of the fairly steep southern slopes of the wide valley to W of the island’s harbour. The fulacht fia is located below the West Road, to N of the Island’s old generating station and lies at the break of slope where the ground levels out onto the flat marshy valley floor (now reclaimed). It is visible as a thin, intermittent layer of heat-fractured stones and charcoal (L c. 2.7m × T 0.15m) exposed in the newly cut eastern face of a stream channel. The course of the stream has recently been widened and deepened. At the point where the monument lies, the stream takes a turn from its previously diagonal course down the hill slope to take up a new N–S course that runs parallel to and immediately W of an earthen field boundary. The top of the layer of burnt stone lies c. 1m below the top of the earthen boundary but is only c. 0.3–0.5m below the surrounding ground surface. Accompanying the burnt stone are one or two fragments of white quartz and masses of charcoal: in fact, charcoal makes up the bulk of the deposit. The layer rests on c. 0.3m of peat that in turn overlies a gravelly subsoil that forms the stream bed. No trace of this layer is visible in the western face of the stream, but the bank is much degraded at this point.

The above description is derived from: New Survey of Clare Island. Volume 5: Archaeology. Edited by Paul Gosling, Conleth Manning and John Waddell. (Royal Irish Academy, Dublin. 2007). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated.

Date of upload: 29 November 2018

References

Gosling, P., Manning, C. and Waddell, J. (eds.) 2007 New Survey of Clare Island, Volume 5: Archaeology. Dublin, Royal Irish Academy.