Hut site, Letter, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Letter, Co. Kerry

At 260 metres on a ridge above the source of the Behy River, a small drystone enclosure sits almost swallowed by rubble and vegetation, its original extent difficult to read from the ground.

What makes it quietly arresting is not the enclosure itself, which is roughly circular and measures only 4 metres by 5 metres internally, but what sits inside it: a neat rectangular structure, 2 metres long and less than half a metre wide internally, roofed with stone lintels and hollow within. Drystone construction, meaning walls built without mortar by carefully selecting and stacking stones, is common enough in the Irish uplands, but this lintel-roofed inner chamber, almost cist-like in its proportions, gives the site an ambiguity that is hard to resolve without further investigation.

The site lies in the townland of Letter West in County Kerry, on the eastern slopes of Beenmore, and it is one of a scatter of hut sites across this elevated terrain. Related clusters sit at Kealduff Upper, 700 metres to the south-east, and on the slopes of Drung Hill, 900 metres to the north-east. The hills here form part of what is known locally as the Glenbeigh Horseshoe, a circuit running from Seefin to Drung Hill, and they wrap around the site on all sides except to the north-east, where the ground opens towards boggy pasture and the village of Glenbeigh below. Dingle Bay is just visible in that direction, beyond the gap between Drung Hill and the low hills of Drom West and Knockatinna, though the foothills of Drung Hill interrupt the view before it reaches the water. The main concentration of rock art in Letter West lies to the south-east and east, meaning this hut complex sits within a broader landscape that saw sustained prehistoric activity across its ridges and slopes.

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Pete F
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