My Ulster Ancestors

The meanness and squalor of country life around 1600 can hardly be conceived by persons of the twentieth century. A cluster of hovels housed the tenants and their helpers, and nearby were whatever sheds and outhouses might have been built. A home was likely to be little more than a shanty, constructed of stones, banked with turf, without mortar, and with straw, heather, or moss stuffed in the holes to keep out the winter blasts. The roof was of thatch or turf. There were no chimneys, but only holes in the roof for the smoke to escape.
The fire, usually in the middle of the house floor, often filled the whole hut with malodorous clouds, since the smoke-clotted roof gradually stopped the venthole. Cattle were tethered at night at one end of the room while the family lay at the other on heather piled upon the floor. Light came from an opening at either gable; when the wind blew and winter came, these holes were stuffed with brackens of old rags to keep out the sleet and blast.