Fulacht fia

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a level landscape with a small meandering NW-SE watercourse just to the SW. Targeted archaeological testing (15E0109) by G. Hull (2015; excavations.ie 2015:420) on features highlighted in a gradiometer survey (15R0005) conducted by Shanarc (2015) identified spreads of burnt mound material (excavations.ie 2015:420). This monument initially manifested as a burnt stone spread (diam. 5.4m; D 0.2m) with a probable trough immediately to its S. It was subsequently completely excavated (15E0583) by P. Duffy as Site H (excavations.ie 2016:0050).

This consists of two troughs. An oval trough (dims 2m x 1.54m; max. D 0.61m) with steep sides and a flat base had four fills including a layer of water-rolled smooth stones and a charcoal-rich soil sealing the base. The main fill was a charcoal-rich sandy clay and a sample of charcoal from this produced a C14 date of 1684-1526 cal. BC. There are a few stakeholes in the vicinity and just 0.3m to the N was a circular, steep-sided and flat-bottomed trough (diam. 1.1-1.2m; max. D 0.9m) with four fills of brown clayey silt that had varying amounts of charcoal and heat-shattered stone. A sample from the main fill produced a radiocarbon date of 1689-1530 cal. BC. A subcircular pit (dims 1.2m x 0.9m; max. D 0.24m) just to the W of the larger trough was steep-sided but with an undulating base and a single fill of black-grey silt with lenses of yellow clay and inclusions of burnt stone. There were some other small features under two small spreads of broken and burnt stone (dims 1.4m x 0.62m; T 0.03m: diam. 2.6m x 2.5m; T 0.05m), all that remained of the mound. No artefacts were recovered but the dates indicate that it was in use during the Middle Bronze Age. (Duffy and Coughlan 2019, 22-8)

See the attached plan from Duffy and Coughlan 2019, fig. 11

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 8 November 2021

References

Hull, G. 2015 An archaeological testing and metal detection report at Portan, Clonee, Co. Meath. Licences: 15E0109; 15R0028. Unpublished report, TVAS

Duffy, P. & Coughlan, J. 2019 Final Excavation Report for Sites G & H, Clonee Data Centre, Clonee, Co. Meath. Licence: 15E0583. Unpublished report, IAC Archaeology

Shanarc 2015 Magnetometer Survey of 92ha development site, Clonee, Co. Meath. Licence: 15R0005. Unpublished report, Shanarc Archaeology