At Knockagolig in north Cork, the blade of a forestry trench exposed something far older than the trees above it: a layer of burnt and fire-cracked material 7.4 metres long and 0.2 metres deep, visible in both faces of the cut. It is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in great numbers across Ireland, typically consisting of a trough, a hearth, and a mound of shattered stone that was repeatedly heated and dropped into water to bring it to the boil.

This site does not stand alone. It is one of a cluster of four such monuments in the immediate area, a grouping that suggests the location was returned to repeatedly, perhaps seasonally, over a long period. A researcher named Bowman noted a set of four fulachta fiadh in this part of Cork back in 1934, and it is possible, though not certain, that this site is among those he recorded. The connection was revisited by O'Shaughnessy in 1997, and the broader picture that emerges is of a landscape that was genuinely busy with prehistoric activity, even if the surface today gives little hint of it. The accident of a forestry trench cutting across the deposit on a northwest to southeast axis is what made the layer legible at all, its burnt signature showing cleanly in the exposed soil profiles on either side.