Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
Two small stone hut sites sit at Teeromoyle in south Kerry, placed close enough together that they may once have functioned as a single, conjoined structure.
That ambiguity, whether these are two separate shelters or the paired compartments of one dwelling, is part of what makes them quietly compelling. Neither is large: the eastern hut measures around three metres in diameter, while the western one stretches to five, and both stand no more than thirty centimetres high today, their walls reduced over centuries to low, turf-softened ridges roughly a metre thick.
The eastern hut is the better preserved of the two. Its walls are revetted, meaning faced and supported, with upright stone slabs, and a large gap opens on the southern side, most likely the original entrance. The western hut is less tidy in its survival: upright stones still define its northern wall, but the southern side has settled into a mixture of sod-covered rubble and smaller slabs placed on edge. This kind of small dry-stone hut, round or sub-round in plan and built directly into the landscape without mortar, is found across the Iveragh Peninsula and indeed across much of early medieval and prehistoric Ireland. They were used variously as domestic shelters, booley huts for seasonal herding, or ancillary structures associated with farming activity, though assigning a precise function or date to an unexcavated site like this one is difficult. The archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, recorded these two structures together as a single entry, noting the possibility of their physical connection.