Hut site, Ballykilmurry, Co. Waterford
Co. Waterford |
Settlement Sites
On an east-facing slope in the Parish of Kilrossanty, County Waterford, two features were once visible just outside the perimeter of a rath, one roughly circular in plan and the other rectangular. They were interpreted as possible hut-sites, the kind of small domestic structures that would have housed people living in close association with a ringfort, the earthen or stone enclosures that served as defended farmsteads across early medieval Ireland. They do not survive today.
The only record of these features comes from a 1933 paper by L. Mongey, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, which dealt primarily with the ringfort and its associated souterrain at Ballykilmurry. A souterrain is an underground passage or chamber, typically stone-lined, built beneath or near a ringfort and used variously for storage, refuge, or ventilation. Mongey noted the two external features in passing, and that passing mention is effectively all that remains of them. The circular and rectangular outlines he observed have since been lost to the landscape entirely, leaving only the reference on the page.