Hut site, Lisdrumneill, Co. Roscommon

Co. Roscommon |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Lisdrumneill, Co. Roscommon

In the pastureland of Lisdrumneill in County Roscommon, there is a hut site that has effectively vanished.

Not demolished, not excavated away, simply absorbed back into the grass, leaving no visible trace for anyone walking over it today. That kind of disappearance is quietly unsettling, partly because the feature was still recognisable within living memory, described as recently as 1972 as a low circular rise in the ground.

The site sits on a steep north-facing slope, positioned a little to the east of the centre of a nearby rath. A rath, sometimes called a ringfort, is an enclosed settlement typical of early medieval Ireland, usually defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches encircling a domestic space. The presence of a hut site within or near a rath is not unusual in itself; these small circular structures, built from timber or stone and turf, were the ordinary dwellings of farming families across early medieval Ireland. What makes this particular example worth noting is the speed of its disappearance from the visible record. Gannon's 1972 description caught it at what was apparently a late stage, a slight swelling in the earth, before the pasture smoothed it entirely from view.

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Pete F
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