Hut site, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry

On the crest of a ridge running westward from Mullaghnarakill mountain in County Kerry, a small circular stone hut has sat largely undisturbed for centuries, its walls still holding their shape despite the slow creep of collapse around its exterior.

What makes it worth pausing over is the construction method: corbelling, a technique in which each successive course of drystone walling is laid slightly inward over the one below, gradually closing the roof without the need for any timber or mortar. Buildings made this way tend to survive well precisely because their structure distributes weight so efficiently, and this one on the Iveragh Peninsula is a reasonable example of just that durability.

The hut measures 3.9 metres in diameter internally, with walls standing to 1.2 metres in height and reaching 1.8 metres in thickness. That wall thickness is characteristic of corbelled structures, which require considerable mass to achieve stability as the courses angle inward. The outer face carries an external offset of coursed blocks, a kind of stepped profile, though this feature is now largely buried beneath tumbled material. Inside, the wall-face was lined with small slabs, giving the interior a neater, more finished appearance than the rough exterior might suggest. There are two points of entry worth noting: a modified lintelled opening on the south-eastern side, 0.7 metres wide and framed by large coursed blocks, and a separate gap immediately to the east that serves as the practical entrance today. The original lintelled doorway was likely the formal entrance, its alteration at some point in the structure's history hinting at a longer period of use or adaptation than a single building phase might imply.

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Pete F
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