The Great Beer Experiment
Fulacht Fiadh
Fulacht Fiadh, which consist of small, horseshoe shaped grass covered mounds, are composed of burnt and fire cracked stones and a central pit or trough. They are common throughout the country – up to 4500 are known of which some 2,000 are found in County Cork - and many more are identified each year.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that the majority of these sites were constructed during the mid to late Bronze Age (c. 1500- c. 500 BC), though some Neolithic examples are known. However, some were still in use up to medieval times. Permanent structures are rarely found nearby, and it is unknown whether early sites were built by permanent settlements or nomadic hunters.
The name derives from Geoffrey Keating’s seventeenth century manuscript Foras Feasa ar Eirinn and as a complete term does not appear in any early manuscripts. Conventional wisdom, based largely on M.J. O’Kellys 1952 experiments in Ballyvourney, Co. Cork suggests that they were used for cooking. John Waddell points out that ‘the fact that meat can be boiled in them does not prove that this was their main purpose’. Alternative theories that have been proposed include bathing, dyeing, metalworking and tanning. It is however, generally agreed that their primary function was to heat water by depositing fired stones into a water-filled trough.
It is our belief that a primary use of the fulacht was for brewing beer (although we do concede that the site may have been multi-functional – the Bronze Age kitchen sink).