The deserted village consists of between 80 and 100 stone cottage ruins and stretch from from the cache location to a point about a mile further west.
The village was abandoned during the famine with some of the houses remaining in use during the summer as shelter until the early part of the last century for the purposes of booleying or transhumance. This is the practice of moving livestock to higher ground for summer grazing.
In 1838 the first Ordnance survey of Achill Island showed the village at Slievemore as being occupied. A few years later a visiting correspondent writing about the Rev. Nangle's Protestant Mission at Dugort makes reference to a deserted village nearby:
In approaching the Colony [Nangle's Mission], the roads wind along the base of Slievemore. Here the ruins of a Deserted Village strike the eye unpleasantly, and should be removed, as they disadvantageously occupy the ground. (Howard, J.E., 1855, 'The Island of Saints')
There is an annual archaeological summer school in the area and have shown that the area dates back to the 12th century during the Anglo Norman period. There are also some megalithic tombs close by and evidence of 5000 year old field systems.
Please seal and put the container back as you found it.