Hut site, Gleann Seanchoirp, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Gleann Seanchoirp, Co. Kerry

In a remote valley on the Dingle Peninsula, close to the upper reaches of the Owenmore river, the low remains of two small structures sit just a few metres apart in the landscape.

They are easy to miss: walls surviving to only about 75 centimetres in height, with a thickness of roughly 85 centimetres, enclosing spaces that would have been modest even by ancient standards. One is oval, measuring approximately 4 by 3 metres; the other is circular, with a diameter of around 2.75 metres. Together they suggest a dwelling place, or perhaps a seasonal shelter, of the kind that once appeared across the upland and coastal margins of early medieval and prehistoric Ireland.

The valley name, Gleann Seanchoirp, sits within the broader territory of Corca Dhuibhne, the Irish-speaking peninsula that stretches west from Tralee towards Slea Head. The site was recorded by archaeologist J. Cuppage as part of the Dingle Peninsula Archaeological Survey, published in 1986 under the Irish title Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, a landmark project that catalogued hundreds of monuments across one of the most archaeologically dense landscapes in Ireland. Cuppage's survey gave this pair of foundations their formal record, though it stops short of assigning them a precise date or cultural context. The two structures, set about 8 metres apart, may represent a small farmstead or a temporary shelter used by herders moving stock through the valley, a practice known in Ireland as booleying, where people and animals moved to upland pastures during summer months.

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