What is recorded here

Thirty metres of angular limestone and earth form a U-shaped basin on a Galway terrace, its kerbed edges rising nearly two metres at either end. The shape and stone suggest a fulacht fiadh, a cooking pit for boiling flesh, yet no water source remains visible to sustain such heat. Local memory offers a different purpose: the builders of Dún Eoghanachta dumped their tools here when the fort was complete, ending labour with a single act of forgetting. Either way the mound records a moment when human effort stopped and stone took over the work of remembering.

On a limestone terrace c. 20m N of the foot of a scarp, and immediately SE of a later house (GA110-017002-). A large U-shaped mound (WNW-ESE 29.2m, NNE-SSW c. 13-15m) of earth and stone, the terminals of which are up to 1.8m in height. Traces of kerbing are visible on sides of the U-shaped hollow, which opens towards NW. This feature, and the make-up of the mound (small angular pieces of limestone), suggest that, despite the apparent absence of a water source, this monument may be a fulacht fiadh. According to local tradition this is the spot where the builders of Dún Eoghanachta buried their tools after the completion of the fort (pers. comm. T. Robinson). (Robinson 1980) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. I - West Galway'. Compiled by Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

A Neolithic U-shaped passage tomb; its size and location suggest it was a significant communal burial and ceremonial site. The association with later structures indicates long-term landscape use.

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