Hut site, Ballyremon Commons, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
On Ballyremon Commons in County Wicklow, a ringfort contains something that many comparable sites do not: the legible remains of two separate hut foundations, still faintly readable as low earthen ridges in the landscape.
Where a ringfort, a roughly circular enclosure defined by a bank and ditch, typically preserves its outer boundary most clearly, this one has held onto the internal domestic detail that usually disappears first.
The two huts sit within the ringfort's enclosure and differ slightly in scale and position. The larger of the pair occupies the north-eastern quadrant, measuring approximately twelve metres along its north-west to south-east axis and six metres across, with its outline formed by a bank of earth and stone that still stands around 0.3 metres high and runs to about 1.6 metres in width. The second hut is smaller, roughly eight metres by five, and is built against the inner face of the ringfort's western bank, suggesting it was tucked deliberately into the shelter of the enclosure wall rather than placed freely within the interior. Both survive as grass-grown banks, low enough to be easily overlooked, but clear enough in their geometry to indicate deliberate construction. Adding further texture to the site is an associated field system attached at the south-west and south-east, which implies that whoever lived within the ringfort was also actively farming the surrounding ground, a reminder that these enclosures were working agricultural settlements rather than purely defensive structures.