Fulacht fia, Reandallane, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Settlement Sites
In a patch of marshy ground in Reandallane, north County Cork, a low mound of burnt stone and charred material sits quietly in the landscape.
It measures roughly 7.4 metres north to south and 7 metres east to west, rising to about 0.6 metres in height. Unremarkable at a glance, it is in fact a fulacht fia, the remains of a Bronze Age cooking site. These features, found in their thousands across Ireland, typically consist of a trough dug into the ground, a hearth for heating stones, and the accumulated debris of those stones once they cracked and shattered from repeated heating and quenching. The mound itself is the discarded material, built up over what may have been many episodes of use.
What makes the Reandallane site quietly interesting is its immediate context. It sits to the north of an infilled well, a proximity that would have been deliberate; water was essential to the whole process, and fulachtaí fia are almost always found close to a reliable source. Ten metres to the south-west lies a second fulacht fia, a detail that raises questions about how these sites were used and by whom. Whether they served the same community across different periods, or were in simultaneous use, is the kind of question the archaeology alone cannot easily answer. The irregular shape of the mound suggests some disturbance or natural spread over time rather than a neatly preserved monument.