Hut site, Derreenacahill, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Derreenacahill, Co. Kerry

On the south-facing slope of Coombane Hill in County Kerry, the ground still holds the outline of a small rectangular shelter, its drystone walls long since collapsed but the logic of its construction still legible in the hillside.

The structure measures roughly four metres north to south and three metres east to west, and whoever built it had a practical understanding of living on a slope: the northern end was cut half a metre into the uphill ground, while the southern portion of the floor sits slightly raised, the whole arrangement levelling out a usable interior space despite the gradient. The walls, built in the drystone method, meaning stones laid without mortar and relying on their own weight and fit for stability, now stand only about half a metre high, the remainder having tumbled. A mat of rushes covers the interior.

The hut sits within a broader field system on rough hill pasture, suggesting it was not an isolated dwelling but part of a small working landscape, perhaps associated with seasonal farming or transhumance, the old practice of moving livestock to upland grazing in summer. A second hut site of the same kind lies just three metres to the north, close enough that the two structures were almost certainly in use together. No dating evidence is recorded, and without excavation it is difficult to place them in time with confidence; such simple drystone shelters were built across many centuries in Kerry's uplands, and the form alone does not distinguish a medieval structure from one of much later date.

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Pete F
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