Hut site, Bigfurze, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Settlement Sites
Inside a ringfort in County Westmeath, the ground does something quietly telling: it rises.
From the outer perimeter toward the centre, the interior of this earthwork climbs steadily upward to a slight knoll, and there, at the highest point, sits the rectangular outline of a building that has not had a roof for a very long time. At six metres north to south and five metres east to west, it is a modest footprint, barely larger than a modern sitting room, yet its presence at the focal point of the enclosure gives it an undeniable logic.
Ringforts are among the most common archaeological monuments in Ireland, typically dating from the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to the twelfth centuries, and understood to have served as enclosed farmsteads for a single family or household. What survives at Bigfurze is the interior of one such enclosure, along with the remains of what was almost certainly a dwelling within it. The hut foundations are not dramatic: the northern side reads as a series of bumps and hollows in the ground, while the southern edge is defined by a low earthen bank. A scatter of boulders and loose stones lies across the site, the remnants of walls long since collapsed or robbed for other uses. To the east, a forestry plantation now sits about fifty-five metres away, and a stream runs some eighty-five metres to the west, a detail that would have mattered considerably to whoever chose this spot, since water access was a practical necessity for any settled household.
