House - medieval, Inis Gé Thuaidh, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
House
Off the north Mayo coast, on a small island whose Irish name translates roughly as North Inis Gé, there are the remains of a medieval house.
That a domestic structure of this age survives at all on such a remote Atlantic island is quietly remarkable. Islands of this kind were not always the uninhabited or seasonally visited places they tend to be today; in the medieval period, small island communities were a familiar feature of the Irish coastline, often sustained by fishing, farming on thin soils, and occasionally by proximity to monastic or ecclesiastical sites nearby.
Unfortunately, the documentary record for this particular structure is sparse, and the specifics of its date, construction, and the people who once lived within its walls remain unclear from what is currently available. What can be said is that a medieval house, in the Irish context, would typically have been a relatively modest structure, built from local stone, with walls thick enough to withstand Atlantic weather and an interior arranged around a central hearth. The presence of such a building on Inis Gé Thuaidh suggests a settled, if small, community occupying the island at some point during the medieval centuries.