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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Fulacht fia

Phoenixtown, County Meath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 1st edition (1829–1842) covering the location of Fulacht fia, Phoenixtown, County Meath, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 1st edition (1829–1842), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Phoenixtown
County
Meath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.68076, -6.79816
SMR number
ME024-031----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1799 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated in a gently undulating landscape. Archaeological testing (04E0926) by S. Keith (2005) at Testing Area 3 of Contract 4 of the M3 motorway identified a burnt mound (excavations.ie 2004:1311) that was partially excavated (E003127) by E. Lyne (2010) as Phoenixtown 6 in August 2006 (excavations.ie 2007:1372). An area of 800 square metres was opened revealing the burnt mound at the SW edge of the road-take.

The mound (dims 11m plus N-S; 8m plus E-W; T 0.1m) had a circular trough (diam. 1.85-2.1m; D 0.7m) with a flat base at its W edge. Attached to this at N was a triangular pit (dims 3.4m x 3.2m; max. D 0.3m) that was truncated at N but had an apex at the lip of the trough and was probably a drainage channel. About 2m to the NW a rectangular trough (dims 1.98m NW-SE; 0.51m NE-SW; D 0.39m) was cut by a post-medieval ditch at N and remains largely unexcavated in the baulk at SW. All these features were filled with broken and burnt stone. Samples of ash charcoal provided C14 dates of 1742-1617 cal. BC (UBA 11106) from the circular trough and 2119-1895 cal. BC (UBA 11108) from the rectangular trough, placing the monument in the Early Bronze Age. Outside the extent of the burnt mound a barbed and tanged arrowhead was found in a thin deposit, and a possible hearth (dims 0.95m x 0.8m; D 0.17m) filled with a light brown/grey silty clay yielded a C14 date of 3770-3654 cal. BC (UBA 11107) from a hazelnut shell, placing that feature in the Early Neolithic. (Lyne 2010, 5-7)

See the attached plan from Lyne (2010, fig. 5)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload; 23 March 2022

References

Keith, S. 2005 M3 Clonee-North of Kells; Contract 4, Navan - Kells and Kells Bypass. Report on Archaeological Assessment at Testing Area 3 in Phoenixtown, County Meath. Licence: 04E0926. Unpublished report, Irish Archaeological Consultancy

Lyne, E. 2010 M3 Clonee – North of Kells, Contract 4, Navan to Kells and Kells Bypass. Final Report on Phoenixtown 6, Co. Meath. Licence: E003127. Unpublished report, Irish Archaeological Consultancy

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Fulacht fia in Meath All County Meath records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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