Hut site, Coomlumminy, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
At the head of the Blackwater river valley in County Kerry, a natural hollow called The Pocket, a broad, steep-sided depression in the uplands of the Iveragh Peninsula, shelters two stone huts that have stood largely unnoticed for centuries.
One of them remains remarkably intact: a circular structure built using corbelled drystone construction, a technique in which successive rings of unmortared stone are laid so that each course projects slightly inward over the last, until the roof can be closed with a cap of flagstones. The entrance, facing west, is still standing to a height of 1.2 metres, though its jambs have mostly fallen away. The interior is modest, measuring roughly 1.5 metres by 1.1 metres, suggesting this was a working shelter rather than a permanent dwelling.
Eighteen metres to the west, a second, slightly larger hut survives in far worse condition, now reduced to a low mound of collapsed stone. It was originally roughly circular, approximately 2.4 metres by 1.8 metres across, and two upright stones still indicate where the entrance once faced east. Together the two structures form a small cluster in an otherwise exposed and thinly documented landscape. Their precise age is unknown, but corbelled stone huts of this type are found across the wilder reaches of Kerry and are associated variously with early medieval settlement, transhumance, the seasonal movement of livestock to upland pastures, and the subsistence farming practices that persisted in remote areas for a very long time. The Iveragh Peninsula, of which this valley forms a part, is unusually dense with such survivals.
The Pocket itself is worth noting as a place-name that accurately describes the geography: the valley narrows and deepens as it rises, and the huts sit within that enclosed upper basin where the Blackwater river begins. For anyone exploring the upland archaeology of south Kerry, the juxtaposition of one carefully preserved corbelled roof beside a near-identical structure already lost to collapse offers an unusually clear illustration of just how precarious the survival of such buildings can be.