2012:538 - Rathmadder, Sligo

Excavation of a burnt spread was carried out prior to development of a new national school at Rathmadder, County Sligo in June/July 2012. The site is located to the rear of St Patrick’s Church in the village of Gurteen. The burnt spread had previously been exposed during monitoring of topsoil removal (Richard Crumlish, June 2012). The brief of the excavation was to expose the extent of the burnt spread and excavate and record all archaeological material found.
The site was initially cleared of overburden with the aid of a tracked excavator. This revealed the broad outline of the burnt spread as encountered during monitoring as well as a disturbed area in the north. The site was then cleaned back by hand using mattocks, hoes and trowels. Excavation revealed a re-deposited clay fulacht material mix over dark fulacht material (C3) in the south of the site. A lighter orange clay and fulacht material and silt mix (C4) overlay the dark fulacht material in the north of the site. An interface mixed deposit between C3 and C4 was exposed in section in the middle of the site. The edge of the burnt spread was defined by charcoal-stained orange natural clay.
The site was sloped from south to north and the stratigraphy could be explained by slump and levelling off of the original burnt mound. A pit-like feature in the centre of the site proved to be irregular in shape and bore no evidence of in situ burning. This feature was interpreted as natural, most likely resulting from a disturbed boulder hollow silting up. The excavation showed the site to have been the remains of a probable fulacht fiadh whose mound had been levelled. No ancillary features such as troughs or pot boilers were found and no finds were retrieved either from the topsoil or from archaeological contexts.

Dominic Delany & Associates, Unit 3, Howley Court, Oranmore, Co. Galway.