Hut site, Ballygarriff, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Settlement Sites
On a piece of elevated ground in Ballygarriff, County Mayo, roughly twenty metres west of a stream, the remains of a small hut sit quietly beneath encroaching scrub.
What makes it worth a second thought is the combination of its modest scale and its ambiguous form: when inspectors recorded it in 1985, it measured approximately four metres by four metres internally, its outline hovering somewhere between square and subcircular. That indeterminate shape is characteristic of early vernacular or pre-modern shelters, where builders worked with the land and available stone rather than a fixed geometric plan, and where centuries of collapse and vegetation have softened whatever edges once existed. A possible entrance was noted on the eastern side, which would be a common orientation, offering some shelter from prevailing westerly weather while catching the morning light.