Booley hut, Bunnamohaun, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Farm Buildings
On the lower south-western slopes of Knockmore, in a fold of ground known locally as Prawke, eight small huts sit arranged in pairs around a natural basin through which a stream runs.
They are so low and grass-covered that a casual walker might step over their banks without registering what they were. This particular hut, one of the cluster, measures roughly four metres by three, its walls reduced to soft grassy ridges no more than half a metre high, with occasional stones pushing up through the sod. Near the western corner, a single upright stone marks what may once have been an entrance gap on the south-western side.
The huts are associated, by local tradition, with booleying, the seasonal practice of moving livestock to upland summer pastures while leaving lower ground for hay and crops. Families, usually women and young people, would accompany the animals and live in temporary shelters for the summer months, a rhythm of transhumance that shaped the Irish landscape for centuries and left behind clusters of small, lightly built structures like these. What makes Prawke slightly unusual is the pairing of the huts and the presence of annexes. This hut has two: a rectangular platform to the south-east, roughly 3.8 metres long and grassed over a stony base, and a very small square enclosure at the northern corner defined by a low stony bank. Whether these served as sheltered pens, storage areas, or some other function is not recorded, but their attachment to the main hut gives the structure a domestic complexity that goes slightly beyond the bare minimum of seasonal shelter.