Fulacht fia in Castlekeeran

Located at the base of a small N-facing slope in a gently undulating landscape and c. 30m N of a continuing post-medieval farmstead. Archaeological testing (04E1055) by D. Bayley (2005) at Testing Area 4 of Contract 5 of the M3 identified a spread of broken and burnt stone (excavations.ie 2004:1223) that was fully excavated (E003176) by S. Reilly in January 2007 (excavations.ie 2007:1278) as Castlekeeran 3. It consisted of a large spread (dims 20m N-S; 10m E-W; T 0.2m) of soft black clayey silt mixed with heat-shattered stones that had charcoal inclusions. It overlay an oval trough (dims 2.3m x 1.5m; D 0.35m) that had remnants of a clay lining evident as a black plastic clay along its sides. It was filled with a friable dark brown clay with small stones. A sample of alder charcoal from the mound produced a C14 date of 2030-1774 cal. BC (Beta 247178). The top of the mound was cut by NNE-SSW furrows. A detached spread (dims 4m E-W; 3m N-S) was immediately to the W and a sample of alder charcoal produced a C14 date of 41 cal. BC – 129 cal. AD (Beta 247179). Three pits (dims 1m x 0.8m; D 0.14m to 1.9m x 1.2m; D 0.2m) filled with clayey silts with stones could be contemporary but there were also two larger modern pits. The walls of a post-medieval building were c. 5m to the NE. (Reilly and Ginn 2008) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 4 March 2022