Hut site, Kelshabeg, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
Tucked within a larger enclosure in Kelshabeg, County Wicklow, is the outline of what was once a small dwelling, now little more than a ring of low stones barely rising from the ground.
The structure measures just four metres in diameter, roughly the footprint of a modest garden shed, which gives some sense of how compact life within it must have been. A clump of gorse has taken hold along its south-eastern edge, quietly doing its part to obscure what little remains.
Hut sites of this kind, essentially the stone foundations or kerbing left behind after a simple circular dwelling has long since vanished, are scattered across the Irish landscape, though many go unrecognised precisely because they are so unassuming. This one sits to the south-east of the centre of its enclosure, an enclosure being a defined area bounded by an earthen bank, wall, or ditch that would have provided some combination of shelter, boundary-marking, and security for those living and working within it. The western side of the hut is thought to be where the entrance once stood, a placement that would have offered some protection from prevailing winds.