What is recorded here

Heat-shattered stones and charcoal-enriched soil mark a Bronze Age cooking site where people heated water in a timber-lined trough before the N8 bypass cut through Fermoy. Sixty-one stake-holes still trace the edges of the trough and hearth, suggesting hands that drove wood into earth and tended fire until the stones cracked. The pits beside the main basin may have held more water, tools or food, while the small hearth threw light across the mud at dusk. What is certain is the scale of the work and the heat it took to make that much stone shatter.

This fulacht fia, located to the W of the bed of a diverted stream, was excavated in 2005 in advance of the construction of the N8 Rathcormac-Fermoy Bypass. It consisted of a spread (c. 10m x 9m) of heat-shattered stones and charcoal-enriched soil which overlay a trough, two pits, a possible second trough and a hearth. A total of 61 stake-holes were associated with the trough and the hearth. The trough (2.15m x 1.46m; D 0.48m) was rectangular and some of the stake-holes associated with it probably held a timber lining in place. The S corner of the trough was truncated by a pit (1.8m x 1.1m; D 0.53m) which may have been a second trough. The hearth (1.5m x 1.1m; D 0.05m) was located to the NW of the trough and its N edge was defined by 16 stake-holes. A further three stake-holes were located to the W of the hearth. The possible trough also truncated the N side of a pit (1.7m x 1.4m; D 0.35m). Another smaller pit (0.6m x 0.55m; D 0.45m) was found to the SE of the trough. Two groups of Bronze Age features (CO035-145----, CO035-146----) were excavated to the NE and SE of this fulacht fia. (O'Reilly 2006, 1-59) The above description is derived from 'The Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 5' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 2009). Date of upload: 22 December 2009

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