House - indeterminate date, Glencoshabinnia, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
House
At the foot of Galtybeg, one of the lesser summits in the Galty mountain range in County Tipperary, a small stone structure sits in ground that is permanently wet and marshy.
It is easy to miss entirely: the walls survive to only half a metre in height, grass-covered and largely absorbed back into the hillside. Nothing about it announces itself. Its date is unknown.
The building is roughly rectangular, measuring around 5.5 metres north to south and just 1.7 metres east to west, with rubble stone walls approximately two metres thick. A possible entrance, some 2.3 metres wide, sits at the southern end of the east wall, and there is evidence of collapse along the interior from the west side. A revetted stone wall, one built with facing stones to hold back the slope, runs uphill from the south-west corner of the structure. A stream feeding into the Clydagh river runs immediately to the west. The building may have been used for booleying, the seasonal practice by which farming families or herders brought cattle up to upland grazing grounds during summer months, occupying temporary shelters while the lower pastures recovered. It was common across Ireland for centuries, and the small proportions of this structure, its isolation, and its position in marginal mountain terrain are consistent with that kind of use. Whether it was ever anything else, and when it was last occupied, remains genuinely uncertain.
