House - prehistoric, Loughgur, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Settlement Sites
On the steep eastern slope of Knockadoon Peninsula at Lough Gur in County Limerick, tucked into a shelf of stepped rock beneath a canopy of mature deciduous trees, the outline of a prehistoric hut survives in a form that most walkers on the path below would never notice.
The structure does not appear on any historic Ordnance Survey maps, and aerial imagery taken as recently as 2018 shows only dense woodland where five hut sites were once identified. The archaeology here is genuinely easy to miss, which makes what lies beneath the leaf litter all the more quietly compelling.
The site, known as Site E, was excavated by Professor Seán P. Ó Ríordáin, whose campaigns at Lough Gur over eighteen seasons transformed understanding of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement in Ireland. The hillside at Knockadoon happens to be formed from stepped rock outcrops, creating natural level platforms, and it was on one of these shelves, roughly nine metres above the path connecting Black Castle to Bouchier's Castle, that Ó Ríordáin identified three hut sites. Two more occupied the next shelf up. Site E, measuring approximately 4.88 metres long by 3.61 metres wide, used the rock face itself as its western wall, with large tabular stones set on edge completing the outline. Inside, excavators found post-holes, a small burnt hearth, and charcoal flecks spread across the floor, the residue of a timber and organic structure that had burned. The finds were sparse: a chert leaf-shaped arrowhead and a flint fragment embedded in the floor, with a single pottery fragment, a bone point, and a whetstone found just above it. Ó Ríordáin concluded there were no signs of intensive occupation, and suggested the hut served as a temporary shelter rather than a permanent dwelling. Tree roots intruding from two large trees growing just outside the northern wall made excavation difficult, and the north-western corner was left untouched entirely.
The site sits above and to the west of the footpath that runs between Black Castle and Bouchier's Castle on the Knockadoon Peninsula, a route that is itself a rewarding walk through a landscape layered with prehistoric and medieval remains. The hut platforms are not signposted and the structures, as Ó Ríordáin noted, are rather overgrown and not clearly defined, so a careful eye for stone alignments against the natural rock face is needed. Much of the wider complex, including the four other hut sites, remains unexcavated, and the area is best approached with some prior familiarity with the published site maps, particularly those compiled by Cleary in 2003.