Hut site, Cloghanaculleen, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Settlement Sites
On the western side of a small north-to-south valley in Cloghanaculleen, Co. Cork, the remains of a circular stone hut sit quietly absorbed into the working landscape around it.
What makes it quietly odd is the tension between its age and its present function: the interior, once the enclosed living or sheltering space of whoever built and used this structure, is now used as a dump for loose stones, cleared from nearby ground and tipped inside the walls as a matter of agricultural convenience.
The structure measures 4.4 metres east to west, and its walls are substantial, running to 1.7 metres in thickness. The inner face is built from uncoursed stones, meaning they are laid without the neat horizontal rows of dressed masonry, rising to about 1.5 metres in height. The outer face is less clearly defined but appears to follow a similar construction method, with a core of sod filling the space between the two faces. This kind of double-faced rubble wall, filled with earthen material, is a typical feature of early vernacular stone construction in the west of Ireland, designed for insulation and structural mass rather than visual refinement. The site has been partially disturbed on its northern side by a roadway and on the east by a field fence, and two cattle gaps, at the east and south, cut through the wall, suggesting the enclosure has been folded into the routine management of the land over generations.