What is recorded here

Half a metre of dark earth hid an oak trough so precise it still holds the shape of the hands that cut it. Mortise and tenon joints lock its ends like a promise kept across millennia, while hazel stakes rise beside it to suggest a roof that once shaded steam and heat. The adjacent structure bears scorch marks, proving fire raged there before the woods swallowed the memory. People did not merely dig a hole; they built a room for water to become visible, then left it behind like a breath exhaled into clay.

Fulacht fia excavated by Nikolah Gilligan (07E0805) and described as 'a subrectangular pit, which was c. 0.51m deep and contained a 1.18m long (east–west) and c. 0.5m wide horizontal oak plank at its base. The plank was laid on a bed of gravelly clay and silt. Mortise and tenon joints were visible in the eastern and western ends of the plank to create vertical and opposing ‘header’ and ‘footer’ oak features and the remnants of a grooved side panel were present along the north-western end of the plank. Worked hazel and ash stakes had been set vertically into the gravelly clay alongside the southern and northern lengths of the oak plank; they may have been incorporated into some form of superstructure above the trough. One of these stakes has been radiocarbon dated to 1612–1494 cal bc (UBA–10274). The trough was probably used in association with a rectangular structure present to its west, which was formed by four groups of stake-holes. Evidence of scorching was visible within the structure and it is thought to have been built to house a fire; it may have been joined to the roof above the trough.' This description is posted on the web at the following internet address (accessed 3 August 2012): http://www.excavations.ie/ Compiled by: Denis Power Date of Upload: 3 August 2012

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