Hut site, Baile An Fheirtéaraigh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the north-western slopes of Croaghmarhin, above the village of Baile an Fheirtéaraigh on the Dingle Peninsula, the ground holds something easy to walk past without recognising it for what it is.
Tucked into a ruined cashel, a type of early Irish stone enclosure typically associated with early medieval farming settlements, are the remains of two small huts. What catches the eye, once you know to look, is a low earthen mound pressed against the outer wall of one of the structures. Inside that mound sits a small drystone chamber, sealed now and inaccessible, but still visible through gaps where some of the flagged roofing slabs have partially given way. The chamber stands only about 0.6 metres high, and its shape is irregular. Nobody approaches this kind of feature with certainty about its original purpose.
The cashel itself is largely collapsed, its oval courtyard wall surviving to no more than 0.6 metres at its highest point. The better-preserved of the two huts is a circular drystone structure, modest even by the standards of early Irish architecture, measuring roughly 3 metres by 3.5 metres internally. Its entrance faces west and is about a metre wide. What survives of the north-eastern wall section rises a full metre above the rubble that has accumulated inside, reaching close to what would have been roof level, which gives some sense of the structure's original scale. The entrance passage into the courtyard, set in the northern sector, splays noticeably as it runs inward, narrowing from 2 metres at the outer face to just 0.65 metres internally over a length of 2.75 metres. This funnelling design is a recurring feature in early Irish enclosures and is thought to have served both practical and defensive purposes. The south-western portion of the hut has been largely destroyed. The site was recorded and described by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, which remains one of the more thorough regional surveys carried out in Ireland.