Girna

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A girna (plural giren) is a traditional dry-stone hut found in rural Malta. They were mainly built for storage or as temporary shelter for farmers and herders, and in the past some may have been lived in. Over time many small giren were abandoned as villages grew, while others remained in use for storage or as shelter near work sites like quarries.

Giren are made from undressed coralline limestone. The walls are about 90 cm thick and are built with two skins of stone with a rubble infill in between, known as mazkan. The roof is corbelled, with each row of stones projecting slightly to create a dome-shaped ceiling that is somewhat beehive-like. The roofs are usually covered with gravel or similar materials. Most giren are round, but some are square, rectangular or oval. They typically have a single door facing east or south, often with a lintel, and some have windows. Some examples have two floors, or access to the roof via an external staircase.

Giren are mainly found in northern Malta, especially around Mellieħa, Manikata, l-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa, Selmun Palace, and the area between Saint Agatha’s Tower and Paradise Bay. More than 30 are within Majjistral Park. In Gozo there are fewer, and they are mostly in areas with Upper Coralline Limestone such as Xagħra, Nadur and Qala. The places where giren appear tend to have hard coralline limestone and less workable globigerina limestone, which helps explain their distribution.

The first known study of the huts was by Paul Cassar in 1961, with later important work by Mikiel Fsadni (1990, English edition 1992). Many giren have been lost to neglect, but others still exist and some are used for storage. A few new examples have even been built in recent times, such as one in 2014 at Ta’ Blankas olive grove in Xewkija.

Giren share similarities with other Mediterranean vernacular buildings, such as Sardinia’s nuraghe, Apulia’s trulli, the bunje of the former Yugoslavia, the borie of France, and huts in Sicily and Libya. Some scholars think the resemblance is superficial. In Maltese history, Jean Quintin in 1536 referred to countryside “African huts,” which may have described giren.

In the 1960s, architect Richard England drew inspiration from giren when designing the curved walls of the Manikata parish church and in a planned Villa Girna, though the latter was never built. Today, many giren remain as a physical reminder of Malta’s rural heritage and the ways people used simple, local materials to adapt to their environment.