Hut site, Kilgar, Co. Westmeath
Co. Westmeath |
Settlement Sites
On a low natural hillock in County Westmeath, in the kind of gently rolling pastureland that seems to absorb history quietly, there is almost nothing to see.
A band of different vegetation, roughly four metres wide, is all that remains of what was once a sub-rectangular structure, most likely a hut site associated with early settlement. The ground has been levelled almost entirely, and only that faint stripe of growth marks where walls or banks once stood.
The 1837 edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map still shows the outline of the site, recorded at a moment when it was presumably more legible in the landscape than it is today. Hut sites of this kind are typically the remains of simple early medieval dwellings, often found in association with ringforts, the circular enclosed farmsteads that were the basic unit of rural settlement in Ireland from roughly the sixth to the twelfth century. There is indeed a ringfort about two hundred metres to the south-east, and within its interior there are vague traces of two further rectangular hut sites. The hillock at Kilgar seems to have been part of a broader pattern of occupation in this corner of Westmeath, chosen for its modest elevation and the clear views it offered across the surrounding ground.
