Hut site, Castlequarter, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
On a steep south-facing slope below the stone rampart of a hillfort, a cluster of ancient hut sites survives in the Castlequarter area of County Wicklow, quietly embedded in the hillside as though the people who built them simply stepped away.
One of these, an oval platform measuring roughly five metres north to south and just over seven metres east to west, sits on a slight natural terrace cut into the slope, its interior levelled and tilting gently to the north-east.
What makes this particular hut site legible to the eye is the boulder bank that defines its south-western edge, between 0.7 and one metre wide, and positioned so that the outer ground level meets the top of the bank while the interior drops away below it, creating a sheltered, semi-sunken floor. The site forms part of a larger cluster beneath the rampart of the hillfort on Brusselstown Hill, itself embedded within the wider Spinans Hill hillfort complex, one of the more extensive prehistoric enclosure systems in Leinster. A second hut site is directly conjoined to the south, suggesting these were not isolated shelters but part of an organised settlement or encampment associated with the hillfort above. Hillforts of this type, defined by substantial stone or earthen ramparts enclosing an elevated area, are generally attributed to the later Bronze Age or Iron Age in Ireland, and the presence of grouped hut platforms on the interior slopes is consistent with sustained occupation rather than occasional use.