Hut site, Ballyslatteen, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Settlement Sites
At Ballyslatteen in County Tipperary, a crescent of low stone wall sits quietly within an older enclosure, its walls so reduced by time that they barely rise above the grass.
The interior height reaches only about 25 centimetres on the inside, 10 centimetres on the outside, and the wall itself is roughly 2.8 metres wide, suggesting a structure that has largely been reclaimed by sod and soil. The crescent shape, measuring approximately 5.5 metres north to south and 6 metres east to west, points to the remains of a hut site, the kind of simple stone-built shelter that once served as domestic or pastoral accommodation in early medieval Ireland.
The site was identified during a field inspection in October 2006, sitting within a larger enclosure. Enclosures of this kind were commonly used to define farmsteads or small settlements, and finding a hut site within one suggests this was once a worked, inhabited landscape. The interior of the hut is described as slightly uneven, which may reflect the collapse of whatever roof or internal features once stood here. What makes the location particularly interesting is the concentration of monuments nearby: a ring-barrow, a type of low circular burial mound defined by a bank and ditch, lies roughly 45 metres to the south-east, and two further enclosures sit within 90 and 120 metres to the north-west. Taken together, these features suggest the area was used across a long stretch of time, with different generations leaving their own marks on the same ground.