Hut site, Drinaghan More, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Settlement Sites
In a field in Drinaghan More, County Sligo, the ground holds what may once have been the floor plan of somebody's home.
The feature is modest almost to the point of invisibility: an oblong depression roughly 3.8 metres from east to west and less than 2 metres from north to south, outlined by a shallow ditch and a low external bank that barely rises half a metre above the surrounding surface. It sits on the northern half of a broader earthwork, and its dimensions suggest a small enclosed space, perhaps a simple dwelling of the kind built across early medieval Ireland, where a single family or individual might have sheltered within a timber or wattle structure.
What makes the site quietly compelling is its pairing. Just 2.5 metres to the south lies a second feature of the same type, the two possible hut sites sitting close enough together to suggest a shared arrangement, perhaps a small farmstead or seasonal settlement where two structures served complementary purposes. The earthwork that contains them both adds another layer of context, hinting at a more deliberate organisation of the landscape than either feature alone would imply. The measurements recorded are precise: the defining ditch is a metre wide and around 30 centimetres deep, the external bank between 30 and 50 centimetres high internally, 40 centimetres externally. These are not dramatic numbers, but in archaeology, it is often the unremarkable that endures longest in the soil, overlooked by later disturbance precisely because it offered so little resistance.