In a pasture field beside a well, the ground looks entirely ordinary. No mound, no hollow, no visible surface trace of any kind. The only hint that something older lies beneath comes from local knowledge: when the field is ploughed, a spread of burnt material surfaces briefly before being turned back into the earth.

That burnt material is the tell-tale signature of a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in considerable numbers across Ireland. The basic principle involved heating stones in a fire, then dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil. The stones would crack and shatter with the repeated heating and cooling, and the resulting mounds of fire-cracked rock and charcoal-blackened soil are what archaeologists recognise as fulacht fia spreads. Most date to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though examples from other periods are known. The proximity of this site to a well is typical; a reliable water source was essential to the whole process, which may have served purposes beyond cooking, including bathing or textile preparation. That a well still sits beside this particular patch of ground, after all this time, is quietly suggestive.