Fulacht fia, Lohort, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Settlement Sites
In a patch of marshy ground near Lohort in north Cork, a low horseshoe-shaped mound sits almost flush with the earth, its modest height of around a quarter of a metre doing little to announce what it once was.
This is a fulacht fia, a type of prehistoric cooking site found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically identified by that characteristic crescent of burnt and fire-cracked stone left behind after repeated use. The mound here measures roughly ten metres east to west and eight metres north to south, with the open end of the horseshoe, about two by three metres, facing south.
The general picture archaeologists have built up around fulachtaí fia suggests they were used by heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to boiling point, a method that leaves behind exactly the kind of scorched, fragmented stone that forms these mounds over time. They tend to cluster in low-lying, waterlogged areas, which fits the marshy setting here, since a ready water supply was essential to the process. What makes the Lohort example quietly notable is that it does not stand alone. A second fulacht fia lies approximately eighty metres to the south, a pairing that hints at repeated activity in this particular stretch of ground, perhaps across generations, perhaps serving a community that returned to the same reliable wet hollow season after season.