Hut site, Glanmore, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the lower slopes of Derryclancy Mountain in south-west Kerry, a small rectangular outline in the rough pasture marks what was once a roofed stone building.
It measures roughly six metres from north to south and just over three metres across, a footprint modest enough that its function was almost certainly domestic or agricultural rather than defensive. What survives is the lowest course of the walls, built from squared cuboid stones, with the tumbled material from the upper courses still lying scattered around the edges, half-swallowed now by ferns.
The entrance, just under a metre wide, faces east, an orientation common in vernacular Irish structures where the prevailing westerly wind would otherwise funnel straight through the doorway. The hut does not sit alone on the hillside. Ten metres to the south-east there is a walled enclosure, and sixteen metres to the north-west a second hut site of similar character. The three features together suggest a small cluster of activity, possibly a seasonal settlement used for transhumance, the traditional practice of moving livestock to upland grazing during summer months, though without excavation the precise date and use of the site remain open questions.