Hut site, Durless, Co. Mayo

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Durless, Co. Mayo

On the west bank of a northward-flowing stream in Durless, County Mayo, a small circular structure sits quietly in the landscape, its stone walls still largely intact despite whatever centuries have passed over it.

What makes it worth a second look is partly what is missing: there is no clearly defined entrance. Most stone-walled enclosures of this kind were built with a visible gap or threshold, a deliberate break in the wall through which people or animals could pass. The absence of one here is an oddity that has no ready explanation.

Recorded by Morahan in 2001, the site is a hut site, a term used for the remains of a simple dry-stone dwelling or shelter, typically circular or oval in plan. This example has an internal diameter of 4.5 metres and an overall diameter of 7 metres, with an enclosing wall around 1.2 metres wide at its south-south-east section. Both the external and internal facing stones survive to a height of 0.6 metres, which is a reasonable degree of preservation for a structure of this type. More intriguing are three stones on the inner face, two positioned at the north and one at the west, that are notably larger than the rest, each roughly 1.4 metres long and between 0.4 and 0.65 metres high. Whether these served a structural purpose, marking posts of some kind, or simply reflect whatever material was locally available, the record does not say. Their deliberate placement on the inner face, however, gives the impression of intention rather than accident.

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Pete F
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