2024:221 - Ballynamona, Cork

Archaeological test-trenching was undertaken as part of a pre-panning assessment in the townland of Ballynamona, near Fermoy, Co. Cork.   Ten trenches were excavated across the proposed development and one contained material of potential archaeological importance; two pits (F4 and F5) containing heat-affected stone, dark grey silt and charcoal were found in Trench 2, with both partially cut by a linear drain (F6). The pits may have originally been one larger feature, or at least stratigraphically related. The pits are interpreted as the remains of a small or truncated prehistoric water-boiling location associated with a pyrolithic technology, i.e. a type of monument known as a fulacht fia.

The features identified in the other trenches correspond to agricultural drains most likely to be of relatively modern date (post 17^th century) but probably of later 19^th– or early 20th-century date. Limestone geology was found in the base of the trenches in the eastern field, and the natural bedding of the rock may correspond to some of the linear anomalies in the geophysical results in this area.