Booley hut, Bunnamohaun, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Farm Buildings
On the lower south-western slopes of Knockmore, in a small natural basin through which a stream runs, eight low stone huts sit grouped together in the landscape, barely visible above the turf.
What makes the arrangement at the place locally known as Prawke particularly curious is the way the huts tend to occur in pairs, as though the people who used them expected company, or at least a neighbour nearby.
The huts are associated, by local tradition, with booleying, the seasonal practice of driving cattle to upland pastures for the summer months and living temporarily alongside them in rough shelters. It was a rhythmic, transhumant way of life once common across Ireland and the wider Atlantic fringe, and the low, partially sunken structures at Bunnamohaun are physical traces of it. This particular hut sits just two metres south-south-east of its pair, on the crest of the slope overlooking the floor of the basin. It is modest in every dimension: a shallow hollow roughly square in plan, about 2.4 metres north to south and 2.1 metres east to west, no deeper than a quarter of a metre. Small stones define its rim, and along the western and part of the southern side, single lines of stone protrude through the sod, possibly the remnants of low walls. A larger flat stone sits at the south-west corner, half a metre long, suggesting something more deliberate than random scatter.
The cluster is best appreciated by moving slowly across the basin and letting the paired arrangement become apparent. The hollows are slight and the stones unobtrusive, so an eye accustomed to reading the ground rather than scanning the horizon will find more here than a casual glance suggests.