Hut site, Cloghoge, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
On a steep east-facing slope above Luggala Lake in County Wicklow, someone once levelled a small oval platform into the hillside and held it in place with a revetment of small boulders along the western edge.
The platform measures roughly eight metres north to south and six metres east to west, a modest footprint that speaks to a single dwelling rather than any communal structure. At the southern end, a narrow projection of the same levelled ground may mark where an entrance once stood, the kind of subtle detail that rewards a careful eye.
This is a hut site, a class of early settlement feature found across upland Ireland, typically formed by cutting into a slope to create a flat living surface and shoring up the downhill side against collapse. The construction here is straightforward but deliberate: steep scarps define the platform to the east and west, and the boulder revetment on the western side would have kept the terrace from slumping. What makes the location particularly interesting is that it does not stand alone. A second hut site lies just thirty metres to the north, suggesting that whoever chose this hillside above Luggala was not simply passing through but establishing something, however temporary or seasonal, overlooking what is now one of the more dramatically situated lakes in the Wicklow uplands.