Hut site, Baile An Lochaigh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, a trio of ancient hut structures sits arranged in a north-west to south-east line, connected by an old field wall, as though the people who built them understood the landscape in terms of boundaries as much as shelter.
The alignment is deliberate, or at least strongly suggests deliberate planning, and what survives is the kind of low, weathered stonework that can be easy to overlook unless you already know what you are looking for.
The site at Baile An Lochaigh comprises the three linked structures, and alongside one of them a separate mound of stones may mark the remains of a fourth. That mound measures roughly 3.8 metres across and 0.7 metres high, with walls at least 1.4 metres thick where they can still be read. Hut sites of this kind are a recurring feature of the Dingle Peninsula, a landscape that preserves an unusually dense concentration of early settlement remains. The peninsula falls within the territory historically known as Corca Dhuibhne, and the site was recorded as part of an archaeological survey of that area published in 1986 by J. Cuppage. The thick-walled, roughly circular or oval stone huts documented across this region are generally understood as early medieval in character, though precise dating is rarely straightforward without excavation.