Hut site, Com Dhíneol Theas, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the southern slopes of the Dingle Peninsula, in a hollow known in Irish as Com Dhíneol Theas, there survives a hut site that doubles under two local place names: Leachtán an Ghleanna and Cúlóg an Tairbh.
That alone is worth pausing over. Sites with dual names often sit at the boundary of competing local traditions or shifting land use, and this one carries the additional curiosity of its form: not a single dwelling but apparently three chambers arranged in a row, an unusual configuration on a landscape more accustomed to solitary beehive huts and scattered clochán clusters.
The three-chambered layout was noted by R. A. S. Macalister in 1899, recorded in his survey work across Kerry at a time when systematic attention to vernacular and prehistoric structures on the Dingle Peninsula was still in its early stages. Macalister's qualification, that the chambers are "apparently" three in a row, hints at the site's condition even then: partial collapse, overgrowth, or ambiguity in the stonework making confident description difficult. The site was later incorporated into J. Cuppage's comprehensive archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region, published in 1986, which remains one of the foundational references for understanding the density and variety of early settlement remains across this part of west Kerry.