Fulacht fia

The National Monuments Service's description

Located in the valley of a small SE-NW stream, which is c. 10m to the NE. Monitoring of topsoil removal (E004661) during the construction of the N25 New Ross by-pass in July 2017 identified a spread of burnt stone, which was subsequently fully excavated (E004891) in August 2017 as Landscape 3 (excavations.ie 2017:201). It consisted of a burnt mound covering a rectangular trough (dims 2.16m x 1.36m; D 0.56m) with rounded corners. Three layers of sandy clay just to the W are probably the upcast from the trough. A layer of moss (T 0.03m) was laid in the base of the trough, above which a lining of five pieces of oak (dims 1.62m x 0.6m; T 0.4m) was laid. This was sealed by a layer of grey clay and gravel (T 0.04m) beneath a black silty sand with quartz and charcoal flecks (T 0.08m). This was beneath the main fill of the trough which was grey sand with some large stones, but nowhere was there evidence of broken and burnt stone in the trough. There were further layers of sand with iron-panning beneath peat deposits and three layers of burnt mound material in succession (dims 4.6m x 2.8m; T 0.16m: 1.86m x 1.52m; T 0.16m; 8.2m x 2.5m; T 0.16m), but all these are stratigraphically much later than the trough. The final spread was cut by a small pit (dims 1.1m x 0.66m; D 0.38m). No artefacts were recovered. (Whitty and Kavanagh 2018)

See the attached plan from Whitty and Kavanagh (2018, fig. 3)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 5 November 2020

References

Whitty, Y. and Kavanagh, L. 2018 Post-Excavation Report for Landscape 3, Co. Wexford. N25 New Ross Bypass. PPP Scheme. Licence: E004891 Unpublished report, IAC Archaeology