Hut site, Rossmackowen Commons, Co. Cork

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Rossmackowen Commons, Co. Cork

On a north-west-facing slope in the rough peaty hill pasture of Rossmackowen Commons, a low ring of collapsed drystone walling breaks the surface of the bog, marking the outline of a dwelling that has been slowly swallowed by the landscape over centuries.

The structure is modest, measuring roughly 2.4 metres east to west and 2.3 metres north to south, its walls reduced to a thickness of about half a metre and a surviving height of just 0.3 metres. That it remains visible at all is largely due to the preserving qualities of the surrounding peat, which has held the tumbled stonework in place rather than letting it disperse entirely.

Hut sites of this kind, built using drystone construction, where stones are laid without mortar and rely on their own weight and careful placement for stability, are found across upland Ireland and can date anywhere from the Bronze Age through to early medieval times and beyond. What makes this particular spot quietly interesting is its setting within a small cluster of related features. Around fifty metres to the east lie a second hut site and an enclosure, suggesting that this was not a solitary shelter but part of a modest grouping, perhaps a seasonal settlement used by people moving livestock onto higher ground during summer months, a practice known in Ireland as booleying. The slope and the rough pasture around it would have been marginal land even when the site was in use, the kind of place that people came to rather than stayed in permanently.

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Pete F
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