Hut site, Inchee, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Inchee, Co. Kerry

High on the north-eastern slopes of Farraniaragh mountain in south Kerry, a collapsed sheepfold conceals something considerably older underneath it.

Beneath the tumbled stones of what was once a sheepfold, the foundations of a small circular hut survive, built in drystone, a construction technique in which stones are laid without mortar, relying entirely on their own weight and careful arrangement for stability. The inner wall-face is still defined by a basal row of upright stones averaging about a metre in height, and the structure itself is modest in scale, measuring roughly 3.1 metres by 2.6 metres across, with walls that were around 1.6 metres thick. That wall thickness, relative to the interior dimensions, suggests a building made to last against exposure rather than one put up in haste.

The site sits in boggy pasture at the head of a tributary of the Finglas river, a remote and physically demanding location that raises questions about who built here and why. Circular drystone huts of this kind appear across the uplands of Kerry and the wider Iveragh peninsula, and they belong to a long tradition of seasonal or occasional occupation of high ground, whether by early medieval farmers moving livestock to summer pastures, by later communities under economic pressure, or by those simply living at the margins of more settled land. The subsequent construction of a sheepfold over the same spot suggests the location continued to serve a pastoral function long after the original hut fell out of use, each generation making what it could of the same exposed ground.

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Pete F
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