Fulacht fia, Barrahaurin, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Barrahaurin, Co. Cork

In a pasture field at Barrahaurin in mid Cork, there is an archaeological site that cannot actually be seen.

Local knowledge holds that a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site, once existed here, lying roughly ten metres south of a related monument that does survive. The vanished one has left no visible surface trace whatsoever, its presence preserved only in memory and in the written record.

Fulachtaí fia (the plural form) are among the most common prehistoric monuments in Ireland, typically presenting as low, horseshoe-shaped mounds of fire-cracked stone and charcoal-blackened earth. They are generally associated with the Bronze Age and are thought to represent outdoor cooking places, where water in a timber or stone trough was heated by dropping stones that had been fired in a hearth. That two such sites appear to have existed in close proximity at Barrahaurin is itself quietly interesting, since paired or clustered fulachtaí are known elsewhere and may hint at repeated or communal use of a particular location over time. The surviving neighbour, recorded separately, at least confirms this was once a place of some prehistoric activity. The lost one, known only through local information passed down and eventually noted in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Volume 3, published in 1997, has simply dissolved back into the pasture.

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Pete F
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