Hut site, Erneen, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a steep north-facing slope in the rough hill pasture of Erneen, County Kerry, a small D-shaped structure sits half-swallowed by the hillside, its entrance barely wide enough to admit a person sideways.
The opening measures just 0.4 metres across, which gives some sense of how compact this place was always meant to be, not a farmstead or a hall but something more provisional, built close to the ground and close to the contours of the land itself.
The hut is defined by a partially collapsed drystone wall, a construction technique using stones fitted together without mortar, relying entirely on weight and careful placement for stability. What survives stands 1.4 metres high in places and is about half a metre thick. The south side is notably straight, running 2.5 metres east to west, giving the structure its characteristic D-shape when viewed from above. The interior, measuring 1.8 metres north to south, was levelled by cutting into the slope itself, so that the uphill side is banked into the earth while the downhill side is walled. A large boulder has been incorporated into the wall at the south-west, which suggests the builders worked around what the landscape offered rather than clearing it away. The floor is now strewn with rubble from the collapsed sections of walling. Below, a river valley opens out to the north, visible from the entrance on clear days.