Hut site, Letter, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Letter, Co. Kerry

On the southern flank of Drung Hill in County Kerry, a pair of conjoined stone huts sit near the upper end of a boundary wall that climbs all the way from the valley floor below.

The wall itself is the first thing that arrests attention: a long, continuous structure ascending gradually through the landscape, terminating close to this small cluster of huts, pens, and what may once have been sheepfolds. The whole arrangement suggests a working upland enclosure, the kind of seasonal grazing infrastructure that was once common in Irish mountain districts but is now mostly reduced to low humps in the grass.

The two huts that form the core of the site are built from stone, with walls surviving to around a metre in height. The slightly angled courses of the stonework point toward at least partial corbelling, a technique in which each successive course of stone projects inward over the one below, allowing a roof to be formed without timber or mortar. The first division of the joined structure, which contains the entrance, is roughly rectangular, measuring approximately 2.2 by 2 metres. It leads into a second, oval-shaped space of around 3 by 2.4 metres, within which a small lintel and a niche survive in the wall. To the south-east, there are remains that may represent a third associated hut. The site was identified and described by John Loesberg, who noted its position as the topmost construction within the cluster.

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Pete F
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