Hut site, Kilrusheighter, Co. Sligo

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Kilrusheighter, Co. Sligo

In a field in Kilrusheighter, County Sligo, a shallow circular rise in the ground marks what may once have been a dwelling.

It is modest almost to the point of invisibility, a disc of earth roughly ten metres across and no more than twenty centimetres above the surrounding ground level, yet its shape is deliberate, its geometry too consistent to be accidental.

The feature sits in the south-western quadrant of what appears to be a rath, the term for a roughly circular earthen enclosure used in early medieval Ireland, typically as a farmstead. Raths are common across the Irish countryside, though they are often unrecognised by the casual eye. The circular raised area within this one is classified as a hut site, suggesting it marks the footprint of a structure, perhaps a dwelling, that once stood inside the protection of the enclosure. A field ditch and field bank have since cut across its western edge, the ordinary business of agricultural land division quietly intruding on whatever came before. The relationship between the hut site and the enclosure has not been excavated, so the precise date and function of either feature remains an open question.

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Pete F
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