Fulacht fia in Ardbraccan

Situated at the bottom of a slight slope down to the E, and with a meandering S-N stream immediately to the E. Archaeological testing (04E0925) by D. Nelis (2005) at Testing Area 1 of Contract 4 of the M3 motorway identified archaeological material (excavations.ie 2004:1245) that was completely excavated (E003120) by C. McManus (2010) as Ardbraccan 6 in June 2006 when almost 1400 square metres were opened. A subcircular, flat-bottomed trough (dims 1.8m x 1.65m; D 0.4m) had a basal layer of brown peaty clay beneath a black charcoal-enriched silty clay with some burnt stone. It had opposed pairs of stakes of alder and ash in the base of the trough and hazel wands from the lower fill suggest that it might have been lined with wicker. A sample of an alder stake returned a C14 date of 2134-1963 cal. BC (UBA 13962), placing it in the Early Bronze Age. The trough was at the S end of the mound of broken and burnt stone (dims 14m N-S; 11.5m E-W; max. T 0.25m) that sealed it, although the mound was truncated slightly on the E side. A sample of the burnt mound material had unburned botanical remains, and buttercup, pale persicaria and elderberry were identified. An oval pit (dims 1.08m x 0.745m; D 0.23m) with a rounded base was outside the mound at S and another pit (dims 0.74m x 0.66m; D 0.18) was under the N end of the mound but was not sealed by it. The mound was also cut by an E-W drain, a S-N drain and a N-S drain pipe. (McManus 2010, 5-8) See the attached plan from McManus (2010, fig. 5) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 25 March 2022