County: Waterford Site name: AHANAGLOGH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0196
Author: Dave Pollock, Knockrower Road, Stradbally, Co. Waterford, for Eachtra Archaeological Projects.
Site type: Fulacht fia and Furnace
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 637220m, N 604302m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.189262, -7.455650
A site with burnt mound material and a nearby site with patches of scorched ground were excavated as part of the extensive investigations ahead of the N25 road realignment at Kilmacthomas.
In Area 1 the bases of two bowl furnaces were excavated. One was charged with charcoal and had a collapsed clay superstructure, and both had been previously fired. Crusts of fused material may have been removed from both after the previous firing. Iron waste recovered from a charred root hole nearby suggests iron smelting. Small patches of scorched subsoil around the area may represent shallower furnaces in the surrounding ground. No dating is available yet.
In Area 2 burnt mound material was found on a hillside well above the present water-table. The material had largely been disturbed by cultivation but mostly filled a shallow hollow below the site of a former spring. The old water source had been disturbed, perhaps cut as a trough but damaged by trampling. A neat pit was cut through clay subsoil into bedrock immediately uphill, lined with clay and used as a trough. The arrangement of burnt stones in the fill suggests reuse as a smaller trough later. Two small patches of scorched ground nearby may be the bases of furnaces similar to those in Area 1. They do not appear to be directly associated with the burnt stones and trough. No dating is available yet.
Both the fulacht fiadh and the scorched patches pre-dated a track, a field boundary, cultivation furrows and ploughscores.
