House - indeterminate date, Bunnaconeen, Co. Galway

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House

House – indeterminate date, Bunnaconeen, Co. Galway

On a south-east-facing slope at Bunnaconeen in County Galway, a scatter of low banks and grass-covered stone sits quietly in open grassland, known locally by the name "caher".

That word, derived from the Irish "cathair", typically refers to a stone ringfort, a roughly circular enclosure of dry-stone walling used in early medieval Ireland as a farmstead or defended homestead. Whether that label fits what is actually here is one of the more interesting open questions about this site.

What survives on the ground comprises several distinct elements. The most legible is the grassed-over stone foundation of a rectangular house, oriented roughly north-west to south-east and measuring 8.5 metres long by 3 metres wide, modest dimensions consistent with a single-roomed rural dwelling, though no date has been firmly established for it. Immediately to the south-west, a slightly larger rectangular platform adjoins it. A short distance to the north-east lies a much more substantial feature: a large sub-rectangular platform measuring roughly 27 by 25 metres, which may be the structure the local "caher" name actually refers to. A number of low banks radiate outward from these features, possibly representing field plots or enclosures associated with the house. That radiating pattern hints at a small agricultural complex rather than a purely defensive one, but the possibility remains that the large platform is a poorly preserved ringfort whose circular character has simply been lost over time. A further earthwork lies approximately 40 metres to the north-west, suggesting this corner of the landscape was once more densely occupied than its current emptiness implies.

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Pete F
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