Hut site, Ardaragh, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Settlement Sites
On the south-east side of Bere Island, somewhere in rough pasture above the north-eastern shore of Lonehort Harbour, there is an archaeological site that may or may not still exist.
A circular hut site roughly four metres in diameter, defined by a low stony bank, was recorded here at some point prior to 2009. When surveyors returned to check in 2005, they found nothing. The briars had likely swallowed it.
The site was recorded on the basis of a personal communication from a J. Sheehan, and the details are sparse but telling. A stony bank defining a circular footprint of around four metres is consistent with early medieval or prehistoric hut construction in Ireland, where simple dry-stone or earth-and-stone banks once formed the walls or foundations of single-room dwellings. The location itself, sloping ground close to a harbour shore, is not unusual for such structures; coastal and sheltered spots were often chosen for their access to both land and sea. But the difficulty of confirming the site in 2005 leaves it in an ambiguous category, acknowledged in the archaeological record yet effectively invisible on the ground.
That invisibility is the most quietly interesting thing about this place. It is not ruined or collapsed so much as absorbed, a site known largely because someone once saw it, noted it, and passed the information along. The possibility remains that the stony bank is still there beneath the briar growth, waiting for a drier season or a clearer eye.