Hut site

The National Monuments Service's description

A complex of five conjoined stone and earth-walled hut-sites (wall H 0.2-0.3m; wall Wth 0.4-1m) located on gently-sloping wet ground above a small cliff, 60m SSW of a hut-site (LI058-025----). Glounreagh Monabrack Stream 20m to S which marks townland boundary with Carrigeen Mountain Listed as Knocknagalty 1 (Costello 2016, 304) and described as following (Costello 2016, 304; Costello 2016, 93; Costello 2020, 121, 160); 'Three of the structures probably served as huts for habitation. A fourth is large enough to have served as a hut but its interior is rather wet. The fifth, on the north, is perhaps too small to have served as a hut and may have acted as a storage structure. The whole complex is poorly-preserved. The most westerly hut site (ext. dims. 6m NNE-SSW x 4.8m WNW-ESE; int. dims. 4m x 2.5m) is the largest and best-defined and its interior is sub-oval in shape, while the others to the east also have curved interiors. The small structure on the northern side of the site is the only one with a straight-sided interior. The original external shape of the structures is difficult to judge because of erosion of the earth used in construction, and also because there is no strict division between the walls and the natural slope. There is a deep-cutting to the west of the complex which carries water into stream during wet times and probably also acted as a slipway for livestock moving down to the stream for water'.

See attached photographs courtesy of Dr. Eugene Costello

Compiled by: Dr Eugene Costello

Date of upload: 25 August 2020

References

Costello, E. 2016 Upland transhumance practices in Ireland, and their role in post-medieval settlement and society, c.1550-1900 AD. Unpublished doctoral thesis, NUI Galway.

Costello, E. 2020 Transhumance and the Making of Ireland’s Uplands, 1550-1900. Woodbridge. Boydell.

Costello, E. 2016 Seasonal settlement and the interpretation of upland archaeology in the Galtee Mountains, Ireland. Landscape History 37(1), 87-98.