What is recorded here

Hot water hissed through cracked limestone in Kiltenan South, shaking the ground before the plough cut across the mound. People may have gathered there to cook, clean or celebrate, using the heat of stones and the patience of water. The pipeline worked the earth open later, exposing shallow hollows still crowded with fire-broken rock. What was lively in antiquity became a scarred line in the field, remembered only through the shape of its loss.

The site was excavated by Emer Dennehy (02E0573) during monitoring of topsoil-stripping along Section 3 of the Bord Gáis Éireann Pipeline to the West, from Goatisland, Co. Limerick, to Gort, Co. Galway. 'Initial topsoil-stripping revealed the site as the shallow remains of a burnt mound, measuring 7m north-south by 4m. Cleaning by hand revealed two large spreads and four natural hollows, all filled with fire-cracked limestone and sandstone in a charcoal-rich matrix. The larger spread was a mixed area of natural and fulacht-type burnt stone material in an L-shaped hollow, measuring 1.9m north-south by 1.4m with a depth of 0.1m. The smaller spread was a subcircular depression measuring 1m by 1.3m with a maximum depth of 0.12m. The four hollows averaged 0.8m in diameter and were 0.08-0.02m deep; all were filled with the same fire-cracked limestone and sandstone in a charcoal-rich matrix. Running east-west across the site was a linear plough furrow over 5m long, 0.12m wide and 0.09m deep, truncating the centre of the site. The site can be interpreted as a series of hollows filled with displaced fulacht material from an area outside the limits of the Bord Gáis Éireann pipeline.' The above description is posted on the web at the following internet address: http://www.excavations.ie/ (accessed 22 August 2012). Compiled by: Denis Power Date of upload: 22 August 2012

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