Hut site, Coomarkane, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Settlement Sites
In the rough pasture of Coomarkane, set into an east-west hollow in the land, a small rectangular structure sits in a state of quiet collapse.
Its walls, built from rubble stone and faced on both sides, still stand to around 0.8 metres, which is just enough to read the outline of a room that once kept weather out and warmth in. The space it encloses is modest: 5.2 metres east to west, 2.3 metres north to south, roughly the footprint of a large garden shed. A narrow entrance, just half a metre wide, opens from the centre of the south wall, the favoured orientation for doorways in structures like this, where shelter from prevailing winds and maximum daylight were practical priorities.
Hut sites of this kind are found widely across upland and marginal land in Cork and throughout Ireland, and dating them precisely without excavation is rarely straightforward. They may belong to any period from the early medieval up to post-medieval times, and many were associated with seasonal pastoral activity, the temporary sheltering of people working land that would not have been occupied year-round. The construction method here, a double-faced rubble wall with a level interior, is consistent with that broad tradition. What makes this particular site quietly interesting is its company: another hut site of the same type lies approximately 25 metres to the east, suggesting that whoever used this hollow did so with some degree of organisation, however modest, rather than in complete isolation. Both structures are now softened by moss and ferns, their interiors partially obscured by fallen rubble, which gives them the appearance of features the landscape has been slowly reabsorbing for some time.