Fulacht fia in Harlockstown

Situated on a level landscape with a small canalised W-E stream that flows into the Broad Meadow River at Donaghmore c. 3km to the E just to the S. Archaeological deposits, later designated as Site 20, were initially identified by D. Bonner in archaeological testing (03E1310) in advance of the N2 Finglas – Ashbourne road and by-pass. The material was subsequently excavated within the road-take by C. Murray under the same licence (excavations.ie 2004:1248). An irregularly shaped homogenous spread of broken and burnt stone (max. dims 19.3m N-S; 9.7m E-W; T 0.03-0.23m) overlaid four troughs, two of which were partially lined with alder. At the S end an oval trough (dims 1.37m x 0.9m; max. D 0.29m) with the remnants of four wooden planks in the base was filled with a black clayey silt, decayed stones and charcoal. A second oval trough (dims 1.35m NE-SW; 1.09m NW-SE; max. D 0.28m) just to the S partly truncated the lower trough. This trough was filled with a deposit of stone that was probably the last use of the fulacht fia. At the N of the area two troughs were 0.8m apart. An oval trough (dims 1.05m x 0.51m plus; D 0.22m) was only partially excavated and has a charcoal-rich clayey silt at the bottom beneath a silty clay. Just 0.8m to the NE an oval trough (dims 1.3m NE-SW; 1m NW-SE; D 0.23m) had five planks of alder in its base beneath a fill of black clayey silt with decayed stone and charcoal. Only one artefact was recovered, a small side-scraper, from the covering mound. Samples from the basal fills of two of the troughs produced C14 determinations of 2290-1970 cal. BC and 2300-2050 cal. BC. (Murray and O’Carroll 2008) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 20 December 2021