Booley hut, Cloghoge, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Farm Buildings
Beside the Cloghoge Brook on the elevated heathland of County Wicklow, two small structures sit so low to the ground that a visitor unfamiliar with booley huts might walk past them entirely.
What survives are shallow outlines pressed into the earth, their walls reduced to sod banks barely a few inches high, yet their layout is still legible after what may be centuries of exposure to wind and wet.
Booley huts were seasonal shelters used during transhumance, the old pastoral practice of moving livestock to upland grazing in summer while family members, often young women and children, stayed nearby to manage the animals and make butter and cheese. The word booley derives from the Irish "buaile", a milking place or summer pasture. These two examples at Cloghoge sit on low ground close to the brook, a practical position that would have provided water for both people and animals. Hut A is the smaller of the pair, measuring roughly four metres north to south and two metres east to west internally, defined by a sod bank about 1.2 metres wide. Hut B lies approximately five metres to the south and is slightly larger at six metres by 2.5 metres, though its sod bank is considerably more broken down. Both structures are modest even by the standards of temporary shelters, suggesting they were built for function rather than comfort, put up quickly, used seasonally, and left to slowly merge back into the hillside.