Fulacht fia in Rockspring

Situated on the S-facing slope of a low E-W spur at the W base of Carrigroe Hill and at the headwaters of a small stream that runs off to the SW. Monitoring of topsoil removal (E004646) during the establishment of a storage area for the construction phase of the M11 Gorey to Enniscorthy motorway identified five archaeological areas which were excavated (E004809) as Rockspring 2 when one area proved to be modern. Area 1 consists of two fulachta fia and a burnt mound, all badly cut by E-W stone drains. The western fulacht fia has an oval trough (dims 2.6m x 2.1m; D 0.8m) that had 134 stakeholes at its N end in two clumps in a relatively small area (dims c. 1.7m x c. 1.5m). The trough was re-cut twice after periods of abandonment and was filled with peaty silts. It had charcoal lenses against the edges and only had burnt stone at the top of the final cut. There were also seven pits (dims 0.85m x 05m; D 0.15m to 2.1m x 1.9m; D 0.2m) in the vicinity, some filled with broken and burnt stone. However, three of the pits were outside the mound of broken and burnt stone (dims 18m x 5.9m; T 0.08m) which was truncated at S by a field drain. No artefacts were recovered. Just to the S of this fulacht fia was a burnt mound (dims 24m E-W; 3.4m N-S; T 0.07m) but this was truncated by stone field drains at N and S and produced no other features or artefacts. (Turrell and Kavanagh 2018, 9-14) See the attached plan from Turrell & Kavanagh (2018, fig. 4) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 5 November 2020