County: Mayo Site name: MULLENMADOGE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A020/013, E3339
Author: Richard F. Gillespie, for Mayo County Council
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 543575m, N 799858m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.944968, -8.859480
This site was excavated between 6 and 27 July 2005. It was newly identified during centreline testing (A020/003) and was fully excavated in advance of the construction of the N5 Charlestown bypass. It was located 420m east of the fulacht fiadh A020/011 (see No. 1467, Excavations 2006) at 86m OD.
It consisted of a roughly circular-shaped spread of burnt stone and charcoal, which measured 6m east–west by 4.73m and had an average thickness of 0.08m. It reached a maximum thickness of 0.17m. This was the remains of a fulacht fiadh mound, which had been obscured and possibly disturbed by land reclamation. It rested on natural boulder clay and peat.
The mound overlay a substantial trough, which had been cut into the subsoil and filled with burnt-mound material (heat-fractured stone and charcoal. It measured 2.55m by 1.85m by 0.46m deep. This trough was subrectangular in plan with rounded ends and a semicircular step cut into its north-east side. This step measured 1.4m by 0.7m, with its base sloping to the trough from a depth of 0.06–0.46m. The base of the trough was outlined by thirteen stake-holes, which were 0.07m in diameter by 0.04–0.16m deep. Nine stake-holes and one post-hole flanked the north-west half of the trough in the surface of the subsoil. The stake-holes were 0.07m in diameter by 0.1m deep and the post-hole 0.27m in diameter by 0.27m deep.
This was a fulacht fiadh with evidence for a lined trough, which was probably used for cooking in the Bronze Age.
Westport Road, Castlebar, Co. Mayo
