2008:1053 - Ballyglass, Sligo

Full excavation of a fulacht fiadh, found as a result of test excavations on the site of a proposed wind farm (see No. 1052 above), took place at Ballyglass townland in the foothills of Slieve Gamph, Co. Sligo, between 5 November and 3 December 2008. A burnt mount measuring 27m north-east/south-west by 17m and up to 1m deep was removed by hand. One chert scraper was recovered from the mound material. Two wood-lined troughs were found below the mound in the east of the site. The troughs were constructed primarily of roundwood and split roundwood but also contained a small number of planks and several pegs with worked ends. There was no timber base to the troughs. One trough (which was at a lower level) cut the other but seems to have incorporated the remains in a functional capacity, perhaps to allow water to flow down. There was an impressive backboard element in the lower trough, which contained several dozen clear toolmarks as well as a curious frontispiece composed of a barely altered tree trunk. The mound was cut by later field drains in the west of the site running north–south. There was also a stone-lined and capped French drain leading to a boulder-filled soakway in the centre of the site.