What is recorded here

Aghnahunshin holds three fulachta fia on a slight slope beside a raised peat bog, where hot water and steam likely rose among people who lived there long before roads or written records. One oval trough returned a date near AD 890 to 1030, proving the site was still reused in the Early Medieval Period. The burnt stones, broken edges and shallow trenches suggest repeated work: heating water, cooking, cleaning cloth or preparing food. What is certain is that the place was not decorative. It was a working edge of a settlement, busy enough to leave its marks behind.

Situated at the crest of a slight E-facing slope that is at the edge of a raised peat bog which extends off to the E and S. First identified in centre-line testing (05E0983) for a new line of the N4 (O’Connor et al. 2005, 43), and later fully excavated (E003311) as a part of Aghnahunshin. Excavation recorded three fulachta fia and associated features. This is a thin spread of burnt and broken stone (dims c. 7m x 4m; max. T 0.12m) truncated by an E-W field bank at N. The burnt material is overlying a rectangular trough (dims 2.5m x 0.97m; max. D 0.1m) at its NW edge and an oval trough (dims 2.75m x 1.6m; max. D 0.27m) at its SE edge. Both were filled with burnt mound material but a sample from the oval trough produced a C14 date of 1066 +- 30 BP (cal. AD 890-1030) demonstrating its re-use during the Early Medieval Period. This trough has a step on the N side with re-deposited natural soil nearby. (Seaver and O’Connor 2009, 16-17; Seaver 2009, 312) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 9 January 2020 O’Connor, D. J., Marta Muniz Pérez and Sheelagh Conran 2005 N4 Dromod-Roosky Bypass. Advance Archaeological Works Contract Licence No. 05E0983 Preliminary Report. Unpublished, CRDS

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