When tourists think of archaeological sites in Ireland, I suspect that most are expecting to see spectacular tombs, temples, and castles—such things as Newgrange. What they don’t expect is what is shown below:
While sites like Newgrange are interesting, many archaeologists want to know about the daily life of the common people, not just ceremonials and burials. To understand the daily life of any ancient people, we need to look at their house sites. What we see today are not walls and great architecture, but some depressions in the soil and perhaps a few rocks sticking up that look out of place.
The Spectacles is a circular hut site adjacent to a circular rock outcrop (hence the designation “The Spectacles”). The site was occupied during the Early Medieval period (400 to 1200 CE).
Shown above is the archaeological site plan.
Shown above is an artist’s conception of what the site would have looked like when it was occupied.
Stone footings and post holes define the remains of three houses, each of which had a hearth. Two of the houses were round while one was square.
One of the round houses measures about 4.5 meters (almost 15 ft.) in diameter and the postholes suggest that the upper wall was formed by posts with an infill of wattle or mud. The roof was supported by timber posts rather than the walls. This house had two hearths: one at the east and one at the north wall. The doorway to the house is a bit more than a meter (a little over 3 ft.) wide and the two large postholes at the entrance suggest to archaeologists that there was probably a porch-like structure at the door.
Outside of the door there was a paved area and a paved path leads to the next house. In their excavation of the site, archaeologists uncovered iron knives, bronze pins, sharpening stones, glass beads, jet bracelets, part of a bone comb, spindle-whorls used in spinning, and animal bones.
The people who lived at The Spectacles were farmers who enclosed their fields with stone walls and an earthen bank. The enclosed area is about 1/7 of an acre. This enclosure was probably used for livestock and they appear to have had four smaller fields for crops.
The Spectacles is at Lough Gur, County Limerick and the grass is kept trimmed at the site which makes it easier to see. Photographs of the site are shown below.