House - indeterminate date, Bunnamohaun, Co. Mayo

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House

House – indeterminate date, Bunnamohaun, Co. Mayo

On the lower slopes of Knockmore on Clare Island, a roughly oval earthwork sits at what appears to be the highest point that anyone ever thought it worth trying to cultivate.

Below it, faint tillage ridges ghost across the ground, the traces of lazy-bed farming pushed as far uphill as the terrain would allow. Above it, nothing, just open commonage running up the mountain. The structure itself marks a kind of threshold, and whatever it once was, it was placed deliberately at that boundary.

What remains is an annular space, essentially a roughly circular enclosure, measuring about 5.8 metres by 5.6 metres, defined on most sides by a grassed-over earthen bank reinforced with stone. The bank is most substantial at the south-south-east, where it reaches 1.1 metres in height and 3.5 metres in width, and a single course of stone foundation is just visible along the southern exterior face. On the eastern, downslope side, the bank simply disappears, leaving a wide open gap of around 3.2 metres. Two further gaps on the northern and north-western sides are thought to be more recent breaks, probably worn through by surface water draining off the slope. The interior is level and largely clear of stone but heavily waterlogged. Archaeologists who surveyed the site concluded that this was most likely a seasonal shelter associated with the tillage ridges below, the kind of rough enclosure a person working a remote upland plot might have used for storage or brief refuge, though the possibility that it served as a rudimentary dwelling cannot be entirely ruled out. No date has been established for it.

A small stream, split into three or four shallow channels, runs immediately to the east of the structure, which may partly explain both the choice of location and the persistent waterlogging of the interior. The site sits on commonage on the south-eastern flanks of Knockmore, and the tillage ridges nearby are subtle enough that they are easily overlooked unless the light is low and raking across the ground at the right angle.

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Pete F
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