What they found at Ballinaclogh was not dramatic in appearance, but quietly significant: a fulacht fia, the term used for a Bronze Age burnt mound, typically created when stones were repeatedly heated and plunged into water-filled troughs to cook meat or process other materials. Over centuries of use, the cracked and discarded stones would accumulate into a distinctive spread of dark, heat-shattered debris, and that is precisely what turned up here.

The site came to light in 2003, during improvement works on the N11, the main road running south from Dublin into County Wicklow. A partial excavation, carried out under licence, revealed a large deposit consisting of several layers of fire-cracked stone and charcoal, the classic signature of a fulacht fia. The layering suggests the site was not a single episode of activity but returned to on multiple occasions, each use leaving its own stratum of burnt residue. The excavation was necessarily limited in scope, constrained by the requirements of the road scheme rather than archaeological curiosity alone.