What is recorded here

Seven hundred years of heat and forgetting cannot erase the shape of human hands. You are standing where the road cut through living memory, not dead soil. The fulacht fia still holds its form because people kept returning to it, feeding it water and flame until it became part the land itself.

Eighteen potential archaeological sites were found during monitoring of topsoil-stripping on the Celbridge Interchange, from April to December 2001 (Licence no. 01E0306). The scheme was approximately 4km in length and ran from Celbridge to Leixlip through gently undulating land with a mixture of arable, pasture and woodland. The southern part of the scheme runs through an area heavily influenced by 18th-century landscape design, with avenues, woodland and tree-lined field boundaries centred on the early 18th-century house at Castletown. This site (Site 10), 13m by 20m, was identified as a possible fulacht fia. It consisted of a spread of burnt mound material, 17m by 8m, and a small pit to the south-west. It was resolved under licence number 01E0715. (www.excavations.ie) Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 10 June 2011

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