Hut site, Ballynamanoge, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Settlement Sites
Inside a ringfort on a south-east-facing slope in County Wicklow, the earthworks tell a more layered story than the outer enclosure alone might suggest.
Tucked into the north-east quadrant, just north of what would have been the entrance, a low semicircular bank survives to a height of roughly 0.4 metres and measures approximately 2.8 metres by 9 metres. It sits pressed against the inner face of the ringfort's own bank, the kind of arrangement that suggests a deliberately sheltered domestic space, the remnant of a structure where people once slept, stored goods, or worked.
A ringfort, to use the term broadly, is a circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks and ditches, common across early medieval Ireland as a unit of farmstead or settlement. What makes this particular example at Ballynamanoge notable is the density of occupation visible within it. Two further hut sites occupy the north-west and south-east quadrants of the same interior, meaning the enclosed space was divided, in effect, into distinct zones of use. Whether these structures were contemporary or accumulated over time is the kind of question the earthworks alone cannot answer, but the layout implies a community rather than a solitary household. The site sits at a natural break in the slope, a detail that is rarely accidental in early medieval settlement; such positions often offered both drainage and a degree of visual command over the surrounding land.
