Fulacht fia, Knocknashannagh, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Knocknashannagh, Co. Cork

In a patch of marshy ground at Knocknashannagh in north Cork, a low horseshoe-shaped mound sits largely forgotten beneath layers of vegetation.

It measures roughly fifteen metres north to south and eleven metres east to west, rising to about 1.9 metres at its highest point, with a six-metre opening facing southeast. The mound is composed of burnt material, the characteristic signature of a fulacht fia, an ancient cooking site typically dated to the Bronze Age. The usual method involved heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough until the water boiled; the cracked and fire-shattered stones were then raked aside, accumulating over time into exactly the kind of low, scorched mound visible here.

What makes this particular site quietly compelling is the trough itself. At some point in the past, digging in the depression at the centre of the mound exposed a trough constructed from oak planks, described in local accounts as roughly five feet long, eighteen inches wide, and two to three inches thick. That the timber survived at all is largely down to the waterlogged, anaerobic conditions in marshy ground, which can preserve organic material for millennia. The trough area remains visible as a depression, with the timbers still partly exposed. A well that once sat in the opening of the mound has since dried up. The site was recorded by Broker in 1937, and it does not stand entirely alone: a second fulacht fia lies approximately 150 metres to the southwest, suggesting this corner of north Cork saw repeated or prolonged use for this kind of activity during prehistory.

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