Hut site, Aghnahoo, Co. Leitrim

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Aghnahoo, Co. Leitrim

On a high plateau in County Leitrim, tucked into the south-western corner of an old sheepfold, there is a structure so small it might easily be mistaken for a natural scatter of stone.

Its interior measures just 1.3 metres by 1.2 metres, barely enough to lie down in, and its walls have long since collapsed into the rough pasture around it. Yet the outline is deliberate, the remains of a rectangular hut-site built from drystone, a construction technique using carefully stacked unmortared stone, that speaks to a human presence on this exposed, east-facing hillside at some point in the past.

The site sits within a sheepfold, which may say something about the continuity of how this land has been used over time. High plateau grazing in Ireland was often seasonal, with people as well as animals moving to upland pastures during summer months, a practice known as booleying. A structure this compact would have provided minimal but functional shelter, perhaps for a herder keeping watch over livestock on exposed ground. Whether the hut and the sheepfold were built as part of the same arrangement, or whether the fold was constructed later and simply absorbed the older ruin within its boundary, is not clear from what survives.

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Pete F
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