Hut site, Rannatruffaun, Co. Sligo
Co. Sligo |
Settlement Sites
At Rannatruffaun in County Sligo, the remains of a small stone structure sit quietly inside the enclosure of an early medieval cashel, its walls reduced to little more than a low trace on the ground.
What makes it notable is not its scale but its arrangement: the hut is tucked into the north-eastern quadrant of the cashel, its wall built directly against the cashel's own stonework, as though borrowing from it for support or shelter.
A cashel is a dry-stone ringfort, a type of enclosed farmstead that was widespread in early medieval Ireland, typically associated with a single family or small farming community. The hut at Rannatruffaun is subrectangular in plan, measuring roughly 4.1 metres by 4.1 metres, with walls surviving to a thickness of around 0.9 metres and a height of just 0.3 metres. A second hut site lies in the southern half of the same cashel interior, suggesting the enclosure once supported more than one structure, possibly in use at the same time or in sequence across different periods. Together they offer a faint but legible picture of domestic life conducted within the protection of a stone enclosure, the inhabitants sharing a bounded space no larger than a modest garden.