Fulacht fia in Monart East

Situated at the bottom of a NE-facing slope and on the W bank of a N-S stream known as Pullinstown Stream. Monitoring of topsoil removal (E004646) during the construction phase of the M11 Gorey to Enniscorthy motorway in September 2016 identified archaeological deposits which were subsequently completely excavated (E004786) as Monart East 1. A spread of burnt mound material overlay a layer of silty sand which was lying on natural peaty clay. There were some spreads of wood in the peaty clay layer and some of these had the marks of a metal tool. Two troughs were partly beneath the circular mound (diam. 6m; max. T 0.11m) and were cut into the silty sand. An oval trough (dims 2.4m x 1.6m; max. D 0.6m) at N had a basal fill of peat beneath a silt. A second oval trough (dims 3m x 1.8m; D 0.28m) was beneath the SE extent of the mound and was filled with a layer of marly peat and gritty sand over a lense of charcoal. Oak and hazel were the dominant species in this sample followed by blackthorn and ash. A sample of hazel from this layer produced a C14 date of 3540+-30BP or 1955-1767 cal. BC. One artefact, a rubber for a saddle quern, was recovered from the silty sand beneath the mound. (Turrell and Kavanagh 2018) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 3 November 2020