Fulacht fia, Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny

Co. Kilkenny |

Settlement Sites

Fulacht fia, Paulstown, Co. Kilkenny

Beneath or beside the altered course of the Acore River in County Kilkenny, a prehistoric cooking site may lie partially destroyed, its remains quietly absorbed into a landscape that was reshaped long after the site was first used.

The feature in question is a fulacht fia, a type of monument found widely across Ireland and typically consisting of a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt and fire-cracked stone, the debris from repeated cycles of heating stones and dropping them into a water-filled trough to bring it to the boil. They date broadly to the Bronze Age, though some examples span a wider period, and they tend to cluster near water, which this one certainly does, sitting in a river valley with the Acore River curving to its south and west and a stream running to the north.

The site was identified by Prendergast in 1955, recorded with precise coordinates on an Ordnance Survey six-inch sheet. That level of specificity matters here because the site's current condition is uncertain. At some point after the 1900 Ordnance Survey revision, the Acore River was channelised at this location, meaning its course was straightened and its banks engineered, most likely for drainage purposes. That intervention may have cut directly through the fulacht fia, scattering or burying whatever mound material remained. It is the kind of loss that happens not through dramatic event but through incremental land management, a river quietly rerouted, and a Bronze Age site caught in the way.

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