Fulacht fia, Meengorman, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Meengorman, Co. Cork

At Meengorman in north Cork, a low oval mound sitting in rough grazing ground beside a stream turns out to be the remains of a cooking site used in prehistoric Ireland.

The mound measures roughly nine metres along its longer axis and just thirty centimetres high, composed entirely of burnt and fire-cracked stone. Unremarkable to most eyes, it is exactly the kind of feature that gets walked over without a second thought.

This is a fulacht fia, a type of monument found in enormous numbers across Ireland, typically dating from the Bronze Age. The usual interpretation is that stones were heated in a fire, then dropped into a water-filled trough to bring the water to a boil; the cracked and discarded stones accumulated over repeated use into the characteristic low mound that survives today. The Meengorman example fits the pattern closely, positioned immediately west of a stream that would have supplied the necessary water. It was recorded by a surveyor named Bowman on land belonging to a M. Linehan, and that earlier record appears to correspond with the mound as it now stands. What makes this particular spot slightly more notable is that a second fulacht fia lies approximately seventy metres to the south-east, suggesting the area saw repeated or concurrent use over time. Finding two within such close proximity is not unheard of, but it does hint at something about the routines and movements of people in this landscape long before any written record begins.

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Pete F
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