Fulacht fia in Castleinch OR Inchyolaghan

In a flat plain stretching E of the Slieve Ardagh Hills to Kilkenny City (4km to the NE) and the Nore valley, 60m S of the Breagagh River. Uncovered during archaeological monitoring (licence no. 99E0603) of a Bord Gáis Éireann gas pipeline development (Stevens 2000, 139-40). The following description is based on Stevens summary (ibid.). The excavation revealed a partially truncated fulacht fiadh, consisting of a burnt mound, two troughs, a possible working surface, a mound of unused boiling stones, a buried sod and a smaller boiling pit. One trough was an irregular ovoid or pear-shaped pit (L 1.1m; Wth 0.75m; D 0.5m) with vertical N and E sides, a straight, steep southern side and a flat base (ibid.). It was orientated NE-SW, but was possibly recut and may have originally been circular or square. It contained a primary silting of fine, grey sand with charcoal, sealed by large, sub-rounded stones (sandstone cobbles: 20% fire-cracked) and fragmented cattle bone in grey/black, silty sand, possibly representing the last firing of this trough. This in turn was sealed by an upper backfill of burnt mound material. The other trough, to the SE, post-dated the one to the NW. It consisted of a shallow, subrectangular pit (L min. 1.8m; Wth 1.5m; D 0.25m) with square profile and flat base. Four post-holes and two stake-holes were cut into the base of this trough around the western edge in an irregular pattern, and two were cut across the centre, possibly representing the staves or sails of a decayed or removed wooden lining. Each post-hole was filled by a grey/black, silty clay with fire-cracked stone and charcoal. All these cuts had tapering profiles, suggesting that the uprights they contained were sharpened. The trough was filled by a single, uniform backfill of burnt mound material, the basal part of which was substantially wetter than the upper part, suggesting that the trough successfully cut below the water-table. An oval pit (L 0.6m; Wth 0.5m; D 0.2m) with concave profile, orientated E-W, was found N of the SE trough, within the area of the burnt mound. It contained a dark grey/brown, sandy silt clay with occasional fire-cracked stone, charcoal and gravel and produced a possible bronze swan-necked pin. A scattered area of similar-sized, partially heat-affected sandstone (with very occasional limestone measuring less than 0.2m) represented a collection of unused boiling stones. The stone, selected for geology and size, was heated but not cracked through contact with cold water and therefore either not used in the boiling process or used only once in the latter stages of the simmering process and not reused. An intermittent layer of mid-brown, silty clay lay NE of the stone scatter and represented a soil dump (exposed L 2m; Wth 1.5m; D 0.1m), possibly associated with a residual buried sod. A possible platform or working surface (exposed L 4m; exposed Wth 3m; D 0.2m), consisting of a compacted area of redeposited, natural boulder clay with occasional charcoal flecks, was found to the E of the SE trough. The partly truncated oblong and concave burnt mound (dims. min. 10m N-W; min. 7m E-W; truncated D 0.45m) sealed these features and continued beyond the area excavated to the W. The mound consisted of fire-cracked sandstone (individual diam. 0.1-0.25m), charcoal and silt. Within the top of the mound were isolated lenses of dark grey clay (T 0.1m). These and the mound were sealed by a layer (diam. 3m; D 0.1m) of compacted, grey/brown, friable, silty sand with charcoal, gravel and fire-cracked stone, possibly representing a buried sod line or soil dump. Two modern pipe-trenches cut across the N and W portions of the fulacht fia. The fulacht fia was not visible prior to the excavation. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 20 October 2020