What is recorded here

Half a million years of rain and plough have not erased the heat. The field still holds an oblong ridge of blackened stone, six feet high at its centre and fading to dust at the edges. Local people called it a pagan burial ground, but the brittle burned rock and dark earth mark it as a cooking pit where water was boiled and food was prepared. The distinction matters less than the continued life of the place: human hands shaped it, tended it and remembered it long after the tools were lost.

In tillage. Described by Hartnett (1939, 274) as 'an oblong pile of turf-covered blackened stones' (35ft N-S; 25ft E-W). 'It rises to a height of 6ft at the centre and tails off to a few inches at the edges' (ibid.). Hartnett was informed that it was regarded locally as 'an old pagan burial ground' (ibid.), though it contained 'black humified earth, mixed with brittle burned stone of the type usually found in a Fulacht Fiadh' (PJH). 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 This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 61/1938).

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