2008:164 - Ballinveiltig, Cork

The site lies adjacent to the Curraheen River at the foot of a ridge of hills on the southern edge of the Lee Valley. The land is low lying (18.95OD) and in this area the Curraheen River provides the boundary between the townlands of Ballynora and Curraheen. The area was the site of an iron works (a scrapping and plating mill) established by Richard Perrott in 1851 and much of the riverbank consists of a low levee made up of brown earth with large deposits of iron slag and of scrap metal. There was a possibility that a fulachta fiadh may be located in the vicinity of the river, which would be impacted on by the Ballynora to Lehenaghmore gas pipeline.
It was proposed to excavate a c. 1.5–2m wide trench with a toothless bucket close to the edge of the stream and from this to excavate offset trenches as necessary to provide a comprehensive coverage of the area. A trench orientated north–south was excavated at c. 8m east of the riverbank for a length of 67m. The trench was 1.6m wide and followed the curve of the riverbank. The field was in pasture and the topsoil was c. 0.2m of dark-brown earth overlying a sandy subsoil. The subsoil was a fluvial deposit comprising a mixture of clay and sand with patches of gravel. An area of charcoal-rich soil and evidence of in situ burning (charcoal lying on oxidised clay) was revealed at a depth of 0.9m below the surface. The area of burning lay 31.6m from the northern end of the trench. In order to investigate the feature and establish its spatial extent, an east–west offset was excavated for a length of 5.5m to the east and 1.6m to the west. The charcoal feature was calculated to cover an area of 3.7m east–west by 2.5m. The layer of charcoal was very shallow (less than 20mm deep). A few angular stones lay amongst the charcoal and these may have been fire-shattered; however, most of the stones were river-rolled and significant concentrations of stones could not be identified as being distinct from the general deposits of gravel that occurred throughout the subsoil.
The only artefacts recovered were slag and nails and fragments of enamel as well as two pieces of glazed red earthenware. All of the finds were recovered from the surface and the topsoil.
As the feature lay directly on the line of the proposed pipe trench, further excavation of the area of burning was recommended and the original licence was duly extended.
Once topsoil had been stripped in an area 10m east–west by a maximum of 7.5m a previously unrecorded fulacht fiadh was identified. The site was then excavated in quadrants.
The site comprised a roughly circular spread of shattered burnt stones and charcoal-rich soil (4.3m north–south by 6.7m by 0.09m thick). An oval-shaped hearth (1.66m north–south by 1.1m) was located at the south-west point of the circular spread and a small circular pit (0.4m diameter), filled with dark-brown/black soil with small fire-blasted stones, was located immediately west-south-west of the hearth. A layer of clay (0.35–0.5m thick) separated the upper layer of burnt stones from a 0.15–0.2m-thick base layer of black organic material containing twigs and nuts. Pieces of wood within this layer may represent the remains of a trough. These were retained for specialist investigation.
A second fulacht fiadh (08E0804, below No. 225), a ring-ditch (080E802, below No. 223) and a Bronze Age enclosure (08E0803, below No. 224) were also excavated in Curraheen townland as part of this pipeline project at a distance of between 230m and 400m south-west of this site.