Fulacht fia in Newtown (clanwilliam By., Kilmurry Ed) — Report the wrong picture

What is recorded here

Heat and hunger still move through the Limerick Southern Ring Road because a fulacht fia once stood in the clay. Stones cracked under repeated fire, water boiled in a dug trench, and people ate together before the road took the place. The burnt mound and shallow fire pit remain visible beneath modern traffic, preserving the effort of feeding others.

Fulacht fia that was excavated prior to the construction of the section of the M7 known as the Limerick Southern Ring Road. A multi period site (LI006-092----) lies c. 127m to the west. Identified during the archaeological monitoring of topsoil stripping and described ‘as a spread of burnt soil, shattered stone and charcoal c. 20m in diameter in the centre of the road take’ (Connolly 2001). The site was excavated by Michael Connolly under Licence No. 01E0406 and the results were summarised as following; ‘Excavation showed that the burnt spread represented the remains of a crescentic mound of burnt material surrounding a natural depression, which appears to have been used as the trough. A shallow, circular area of fire-reddened subsoil, 2.5m in diameter, was excavated 3.6m south-west of the main burnt spread. An arrangement of four post-holes was excavated around the fire-reddened spread, and an argument could be made concerning their possible function as the supports for a cooking-spit over the fire. No artefacts were recovered from the site.’ (www.excavations.ie 2001:790; Connolly 2003, 241). Compiled by: Fiona Rooney Date of upload: 16 June 2020

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