Hut site, Na Gleannta Thuaidh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the northern glens of the Dingle Peninsula, in the Irish-speaking townland of Na Gleannta Thuaidh in County Kerry, there sits a small oval structure that is, by any architectural measure, a modest thing.
It measures roughly two and a quarter to just over three metres across, stands about one and a half metres high, and its walls vary between less than a metre and just over a metre in thickness. What makes it more interesting than its dimensions suggest is what appears to be embedded within it: the remains of an earlier corbelled structure, incorporated into the later, less careful build. Corbelling is a technique in which stones are laid in overlapping horizontal courses, each projecting slightly inward over the one below, until the walls eventually meet to form a roof without any timber or mortar. Finding a later, poorly-built oval hut that has cannibalised the fabric of an earlier corbelled one implies a sequence of occupation, reuse, and gradual decay that stretches back considerably further than the surviving structure itself.
The site was recorded as part of J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne, or Dingle Peninsula, a region exceptionally dense with early ecclesiastical remains, field systems, and the stone huts known as clocháns that dot its Atlantic-facing slopes. Directly to the north of the oval structure, a mound of stones contains a short section of drystone walling, possibly the remnant of a separate small circular building. Whether these two features were ever used simultaneously, or represent different phases of activity entirely, is not recorded. The overall impression is of a place that was returned to, altered, and eventually abandoned, each phase of use leaving only its most durable traces in stone.