Hut site, An Cloigeann, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Settlement Sites
On the western edge of County Mayo, in a place whose Irish name translates roughly as "the skull" or "the round-topped head", there are the remains of a hut site, a category of monument that tends to slip past casual notice.
These are the traces of simple, often circular, stone-walled shelters used across many centuries of Irish prehistory and early history, built by people whose lives left few other marks on the landscape. An Cloigeann is one of countless such places scattered across the west of Ireland, yet the name itself carries a particular atmosphere, suggestive of a bare, domed prominence rising above bog or shoreline.
Beyond its classification and location, the specific details of this site remain to be fully documented in the public record. What can be said is that hut sites in Mayo frequently date from the Bronze Age or early medieval period, and in coastal or upland areas like those characteristic of this part of the county, they sometimes formed part of wider settlement clusters, occasionally associated with field systems, enclosures, or evidence of seasonal habitation. The townland name An Cloigeann is itself worth noting; placename evidence in Ireland often preserves the oldest available description of a landscape feature, and a name meaning something like "the skull" typically points to a rounded, elevated landform, the kind of terrain where exposed, windswept shelters were practical rather than incidental.