Structure, Addergoole, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Utility Structures
On the south-eastern slope of Diamond Hill in Connemara, half-swallowed by blanket bog, there is a small rectangular structure that most walkers would step over without a second glance.
Measuring roughly 1.8 metres east to west and 1.2 metres north to south internally, it sits on the northern bank of a stream with the unwieldy name Sruffaunloughaunnavcagh, which feeds into the Polladirk River to the east. Heather and grasses press in from every side, and the interior has largely collapsed, leaving only the northern wall standing to any appreciable height, around 0.7 metres internally. A gap in the southern side hints at where an entrance may once have been.
What makes the structure quietly interesting is its probable function and its company. About thirty metres to the north-east sits what may be a booley hut, a temporary shelter used by those who practised transhumance, the seasonal movement of cattle to upland grazing during summer months. Booleying was common across Ireland well into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the clusters of small, roughly built structures left behind in boggy uplands are among the more atmospheric remnants of that way of life. Whether the Addergoole structure served a similar seasonal purpose, or something else entirely, the notes stop short of saying, and the collapse and vegetation cover make any confident reading of the stonework difficult. The two structures together, set against the bog and the slope of Diamond Hill, suggest a working landscape that has long since gone quiet.