Fulacht fia, Creeveen, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Creeveen, Co. Kerry

A low, flat-topped mound sitting in a field in Creeveen, Co. Kerry, might not announce itself as anything remarkable, but the material it is made from tells a different story.

Composed almost entirely of shattered rock and burnt earth, it is the accumulated debris of prehistoric cooking, a fulacht fia, one of the most common yet persistently mysterious monument types in the Irish landscape.

A fulacht fia, broadly speaking, is the remains of an ancient outdoor cooking site, typically Bronze Age in origin, where stones were heated in a fire and then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring it to a boil. The broken, fire-cracked stones, discarded after use, built up over time into the distinctive mounds that survive today. This particular example at Creeveen measures thirteen metres in diameter and stands 1.6 metres high, a substantial accumulation that points to repeated, sustained use over time. Rock outcrop pushes through its surface here and there. On its south-eastern side, oriented towards a small nearby stream, there is a square depression measuring roughly one metre by one metre, almost certainly the location of the trough itself, that essential feature where heated stones met water. The proximity to the stream is characteristic; a reliable water source was a practical necessity for the whole process.

This mound is the second of at least two fulachta fiadh recorded in close proximity at Creeveen, the first lying a short distance to the north-east. The clustering of such sites is not unusual and may reflect either repeated seasonal occupation of a favoured location or the activities of a community that returned to the same stretch of ground across generations.

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