Hut site, Ballymooney, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
On a steep west-facing slope in Ballymooney, County Wicklow, the low remains of a rectangular hut foundation sit just a few metres from an almost identical structure, the two of them looking out over a ravine below.
That pairing is what gives the site a quiet curiosity: whoever built here chose not only this exposed, sloping ground but also, apparently, company.
The foundation measures roughly 9.7 metres east to west and 6.8 metres north to south, its outline held by earth and stone walls that are between one and one point two metres wide but survive to only about forty centimetres in height. At the western end, two large flat slabs lying on their sides mark where the entrance once stood. Hut foundations of this kind are the earthfast traces of structures whose upper walls and roofs have long since vanished; what remains is essentially the footprint, a low kerb of material that once anchored something more substantial above it. The proximity of a near-identical hut just three metres to the south-west raises questions that the physical remains alone cannot answer, whether these were two buildings in simultaneous use or successive ones, whether they sheltered people, livestock, or something else entirely.