Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Coffee Hour at Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can discuss what’s happening in our lives, what we’ve been working on, and our opinions on current events. Our question of the day: What’s a crannog?

If you guessed that a crannog is a special kind of Irish dance performed in pubs in Dingle for St. Brendon’s day or a kind of green beer consumed on St. Patrick’s day, then you guessed wrong.
Crannogs are artificial islands in the middle of lakes. Used from about 1000 BCE to 1600 CE, the crannogs allowed for greater protection from attack. The name “crannog” is derived from the Irish root—“crann” which means “tree” and relates to the use of wood. To make a crannog, the people would dump timber, earth, and stones onto a lake or river bed.
Shown below are photographs of the reconstructed crannog at Craggaunowen which shows more about what life was like in a crannog.






Shown above is a typical round house using a wattle-and-daub system for the walls and a thatched roof.

Shown above is a larger oval-shaped house.

Shown above is a detail of the thatched roof.




Shown above are the house interiors.
This is an open thread where you can talk about crannogs, Politics, Religion, dinner, music, or whatever else interests you today.