Hut site, Cill Mhic An Domhnaigh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Cill Mhic An Domhnaigh, Co. Kerry

On the south-eastern slopes of Mount Eagle, on the Dingle Peninsula, the low stone foundations of two conjoined huts sit quietly in the landscape, connected to one another by a communicating passage.

What makes the arrangement quietly odd is the combination of forms: the southern structure is circular in plan, which is typical enough for early Irish habitation sites, while the northern one is probably D-shaped, a subtler geometry that suggests either adaptation to the terrain or a deliberate secondary addition. The walls survive to about a metre in height, and the footprint is modest, with the circular structure measuring roughly 3.5 metres in diameter and the northern element only around 1.7 by 1.7 metres. A short distance to the south-east, there are possible remains of a third structure, approximately 2.25 metres across, though its relationship to the conjoined pair is not fully established.

The site sits within Cill Mhic An Domhnaigh, a townland whose name points to an early ecclesiastical presence, and it forms part of the extraordinarily dense archaeological landscape of Corca Dhuibhne, the old territory covering much of the Dingle Peninsula. This corner of Kerry preserves an unusual concentration of early medieval and prehistoric remains, from promontory forts and ogham stones to clochán clusters, the distinctive dry-stone beehive huts found elsewhere on the peninsula. The conjoined plan here, with its internal passage linking the two spaces, hints at a small but organised domestic or perhaps ancillary arrangement, though whether it served a farming, sheltering, or more specialised function is not recorded. The structures were documented as part of J. Cuppage's archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, published in 1986 under the Irish-language title referencing the Corca Dhuibhne heritage project, which remains a foundational reference for the region's field monuments.

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