Booley hut, Coumaraglinmountain, Co. Waterford
Co. Waterford |
Farm Buildings
On the lower western slopes of the Monavullagh Mountains in County Waterford, a small rectangle of stone foundations sits in rough pasture above the upper Araglin river valley. Measuring roughly 5.6 metres east to west and 2.6 metres north to south, it is not much larger than a modest garden shed. What it represents, though, is a way of life that shaped the Irish uplands for centuries: the booley hut, a seasonal shelter used during the practice of booleying, whereby families or herders drove their cattle to high summer pastures and lived alongside them for months at a time. The huts they built were simple, often temporary, and most have long since melted back into the hillside. This one survives as foundations, a faint but legible trace.
The valley here runs roughly northeast to southwest, carved by the Araglin river, and the hut sits on the valley floor close to the lower slopes, a sensible position that would have offered some shelter from prevailing weather while keeping the grazing land within easy reach. About 150 metres to the northeast lies a burial cairn, a mound of stones marking a much older presence on this mountain, suggesting that these uplands were known and used across a very long span of human activity. The booley hut is protected as part of a national monument complex at Coumaraglinmountain, designated under the National Monuments (Preservation) Order No. 4 of 1996, which recognises the collective significance of the various remains scattered across this part of the Monavullaghs.