What is recorded here

Hot stones, lifted and dropped into water until the pit hissed and steamed. That is the purpose of the place. The castletown field kept a rectangular trough and a smaller oval pit beside it, both filled with blackened soil and fire-broken rock. For a moment in 2000, men in work boots stood above the hole and saw the shape of an ordinary kitchen beneath the topsoil. They could have imagined the smell of boiling fat, the ring of a stone striking water, the laughter of people gathered close on a cold evening. Then the machines returned, the soil lifted in ribbons, and the kitchen disappeared into a truck. What remains is a rectangle in a report and a field that no longer remembers heat.

Identified during the monitoring of topsoil-stripping and associated plant excavations being carried out at the Arcon Mines, Galmoy, Co. Kilkenny, between November 1999 and March 2000. Initially identified as a large spread (dims. c. 10m N-S; c. 17m E-W) of blackened and fire-shattered stone immediately beneath the topsoil. A sub-rectangular trough (dims. 1.65m x 1.4m; D 0.75m), orientated roughly NW-SE, was located W of centre within the spread (Coughlan 2002, 172). There were two large angular stones at the NW and SW corners of the trough, not burnt, and two small stake-holes near the SE corner, cut through the base of the trough. The main deposit filling the trough consisted of blackened soil and fire-shattered stone, which was identical to the main spread of mound material covering the trough. It appears that the trough was extended on the W side by another, roughly oval, pit (dims. 1.25m x 1.1m; D 0.65m), roughly orientated E-W. (Coughlan 2002, 172). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 9 May 2016

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.