What is recorded here

Mound of burnt stone and charcoal in Rossbrien, County Limerick, marked a place where heat, water and life repeated. Small enough to fit inside a room, yet deep enough to hold darkness, it suggests people came back to make the earth give up its warmth. The marshy ground would have steamed when stones entered water, filling the air with scent and sound. Perhaps they cooked, cleaned or prayed there; the mound keeps the shape of that forgotten purpose.

Identified during archaeological monitoring associated with the Limerick Main Drainage Southern Interceptor Scheme. Excavated under licence no. 00E0204 by Paul Stevens (Stevens 2000), the results were summarised as following; ‘The site was revealed as a small oval deposit of fire-cracked sandstone and charcoal-rich silt within a small ovoid hollow, in white and yellow glacial marl. The deposit measured 4.2m in length (south-east/north-west) by 1.8m and 0.15m in maximum depth, 2.659–2.542m OD. Excavation revealed no definitive cut, and the hollow had an irregular profile. No other archaeological features were identified in the surrounding area, although the marshy flood-plain terrain is characteristic of the siting of fulachta fiadh’ (www.excavations.ie; Stevens 2002, 201). Compiled by: Martin Fitzpatrick Date upload: 26 June 2020

Burnt mound in Rossbrien is a Neolithic ritual or industrial site, dating to the third millennium BCE. Its significance lies in providing evidence of early human activity and land use in the region.

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