What is recorded here

Seven burnt mounds in Rathgarvan and Clifden keep their shapes only beneath pasture and reclaimed marsh. Ploughs erased their troughs, yet circular spreads of black stone and charcoal still mark where heat once worked the earth. People may have cooked, cleaned or simply played with fire beside the water, leaving behind a small constellation of scorched rings. The gas pipeline cut through one site, but the others remain hidden, waiting for rain or curiosity to reveal them again.

In pasture, reclaimed marsh. O'Flaherty (1983, 16) notes that during fieldwalking in advance of the laying of the Cork-Dublin gas pipeline, 'seven fulachta fiadha were discovered in the townlands of Clohoge and Rathcash, Co. Kilkenny. These sites had been ploughed out, but were visible as roughly circular spreads of burnt stone and charcoal'. Five of these monuments were located on an extract of a 6-inch OS map (KK020-075----; KK020-076-----; KK020-077----; KK020-078----; KK029-079-----) (per. comm. Maurice Hurley 1987). A sixth (KK020-039-----) was excavated as it lay within the pipeline corridor (O'Flahery 1987, 45). There is no information on the location of the seventh fulachta fiadha (KK020-013----), its precise location with the townlands of Cloghoge and Rathcash is unknown. As the monuments had no visible troughs they have been reclassified as burnt mounds. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 17 November 2020

Burnt mound (fulacht fiadh), likely dating to the Early to Middle Bronze Age. These sites were used for cooking or processing activities and are significant as common features of Irish prehistoric landscapes.

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