Hut site, Glennameade, Co. Limerick

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Glennameade, Co. Limerick

A circular depression roughly five metres across, defined by a low clay bank with a scattering of stones, sits in a grazing field on the south-facing slope of a spur in Glennameade, County Limerick.

It does not appear on any Ordnance Survey map. No marker indicates it. Cattle move around it without ceremony. Whether it is the remains of a prehistoric or early medieval hut site, a simple hollow formed by some later use of the land, or something else entirely, remains an open question. That ambiguity is precisely what makes it worth knowing about.

The site was recorded by Celie O'Rahilly during a field survey carried out in 1991. O'Rahilly noted its position just north-east of a nearby enclosure, catalogued separately in the record as LI012-023. A hut site, in the general archaeological sense, is the ground-level remnant of a simple dwelling, typically circular in plan, where the wall material has long since decayed or been robbed out, leaving only a subtle earthwork trace. The low bank and slight depression at Glennameade fit that general profile, though the record is careful in its language, using the phrase "could be a hut site" rather than asserting anything more definitive. The site remained unconfirmed in the decades that followed, though a Google Earth orthoimage captured in September 2008 did show what appears to be a circular depression consistent with O'Rahilly's description. The record was compiled by Fiona Rooney and uploaded to the national monuments database in June 2020.

Because the site sits on private farmland and carries no formal signage, any visit would require landowner permission. The south-facing slope means the feature catches reasonable light for much of the day, which helps when you are trying to read subtle earthworks in grass. The low bank is the thing to look for, rather than any dramatic upstanding remains; at five metres in diameter it is modest, and the surrounding pasture can make it easy to overlook unless you are standing close and looking deliberately. Its proximity to the nearby enclosure suggests this small corner of Glennameade may repay careful attention to the ground underfoot.

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