Hut site, Mullaghmesha, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Settlement Sites
At Mullaghmesha in County Cork, a small arc of stone marks the north-easterly end of a group of three conjoined hut sites, the kind of prehistoric domestic remnant that can be easy to walk past without quite registering what you are looking at.
This particular example measures just two metres in diameter and is partially destroyed, which makes its survival, even in fragmentary form, quietly remarkable.
The site belongs to a cluster of three hut sites that were built adjoining one another, a conjoined arrangement that suggests coordinated occupation rather than isolated settlement. Hut sites of this type are the remains of simple circular or oval structures, typically defined by low stone walls or kerbing, and were used throughout prehistoric and early medieval Ireland as dwellings or seasonal shelters. The group at Mullaghmesha is recorded in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Volume 5, published in 2009, with this north-easterly example representing the outermost point of the trio.