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Fulacht fia in Ballydaly

Fulacht fia

What is recorded here

Dan Riordan’s land once held a forty-foot heap where a stream still runs beside the vanished stones. People called it a fort, but the shape and water pointed to a fulacht fia, a cooking pit where heat and steam did the work of hands. The field was reclaimed and the heap erased, yet the misnamed fort lives on in local memory because invention often serves life better than forgetting does.
Broker (1937, 12) recorded a fulacht fiadh on Dan Riordan's land, 'heap 40 feet by 28 feet and at its highest point 6 feet over ground level. A stream runs beside it. It is locally called a fort, but my helper who visited it pronounced it a fulacht fiadh'. Field in which fulacht fiadh stood was identified; land reclaimed; no visible surface trace. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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What survives
Recorded monument

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