Hut site, An Fearann, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, An Fearann, Co. Kerry

At An Fearann on the Dingle Peninsula, a low earthen ringfort encloses the remains of at least three stone huts, and possibly a fourth.

That last one is the curious detail: all that marks its potential existence is a single arc of drystone walling, 1.75 metres long and one course high, curving against the south-eastern side of a neighbouring structure. It is barely enough to suggest a room, let alone a life lived inside one, yet it is precisely that ambiguity that makes the site worth pausing over.

The enclosure is classified as a univallate rath, meaning it is defined by a single surrounding bank or wall rather than the double or triple circuits seen at more elaborate sites. Raths of this kind were typically domestic in character, serving as enclosed farmsteads during the early medieval period, roughly the fifth to twelfth centuries. The concentration of circular stone huts within the interior at An Fearann points to a small settlement, perhaps housing an extended family or a modest agricultural household. The site was documented in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne, the Dingle Peninsula, a systematic record of the extraordinary density of prehistoric and early medieval remains that survive in this part of west Kerry, where thin soils and centuries of low-intensity land use have left much undisturbed.

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