Hut site, Foilatrisnig, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Foilatrisnig, Co. Kerry

On a north-facing slope at the foot of a mountain ridge above Tralee Bay, a roughly circular cashel sits quietly at a place called Foilatrisnig.

A cashel is a stone-walled enclosure, typically of early medieval Irish origin, used to protect a dwelling or small farmstead. What makes this one worth pausing over is not the outer wall alone, but what was found inside it: the foundations of a circular hut, and beneath or within that structure, indications of souterrains.

Souterrains are underground passages or chambers, usually constructed from dry stone, that were built within or close to early medieval settlements across Ireland. Their exact purposes are still debated, but they likely served as cool storage spaces or places of concealment in times of danger. The site, known in Irish as An Chathair Bhán or Caherbaun, was recorded by the Co. Kerry Field Club, which noted the hut foundations measuring roughly twelve feet, or about 3.6 metres, in diameter. The fuller picture of the site was later drawn together by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, a substantial study of the Corca Dhuibhne region that catalogued many such early settlements across this densely layered landscape.

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