Fulacht fia in Ballycarrigeen Lower

Situated in a hollow in a gently undulating landscape. Archaeological testing (E004781) of an area required for the construction phase of the M11 Gorey to Enniscorthy motorway in November 2016 (Whitty and Coughlan 2017) identified archaeological features (excavationis.ie 2017:167) which were fully excavated (E005033) in January 2019 as a part of Ballycarrigeen 11, Area 4 when it proved to be two fulachta fia (excavations.ie 2019:319). This feature comprises a horseshoe-shaped burnt mound (dims 8.7m x 5.35m; T 0.2m) surrounding a circular trough (diam. 1.43m x 1.4m; D 0.44m) on its W and N. The trough is filled with four layers of silty clay with charcoal and some burnt stone and there is a patch of orange clay (dims 1.3m x 0.6m) 0.5m to the NE, which is interpreted as a hearth. There is an oval pit (dims 0.64m x 0.45m; D 0.17m) 2.8m to the NW of the trough beneath the mound which is filled with the mound material. Two smaller spreads of burnt mound material (dims 1.78m x 1.04m; T 0.11m: 1.96m x 0.88m; T 0.06m) are detached from the mound and c. 1-2m E and SE of the trough. No artefacts were recovered and the mound was cut by a later NNE-SSW drain at NW and disturbed by furrows. (Kavanagh 2019, 9-11) See the attached plan from Kavanagh and Vleeshouver 2020, Fig. 4 Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 19 November 2020 Amended: 8 November 2020