Field boundary, Com Na Heorna Thiar, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Field boundary, Com Na Heorna Thiar, Co. Kerry

High on the eastern slopes of Cahernageeha, in the rough wet pasture at the head of a Coomnahorna tributary, two small ruined huts sit within a landscape that has largely forgotten them.

What makes the arrangement quietly unusual is not any single feature but the combination: a subcircular structure defined by a double row of upright stones, a stone-revetted rectangular platform abutting its southern side, and a second, slightly larger hut some thirty metres to the south-west. Old field walls survive nearby, suggesting this was once a coherent, working parcel of land rather than an isolated shelter.

The two huts are modest in scale. The first measures roughly 3.3 metres by 2.8 metres, with walls around 0.9 metres thick, and a possible entrance facing west. The rectangular platform pressed against its south side, 4.6 metres by 2.4 metres and edged with stone revetment, may have served as a working or storage surface, though its precise function is not recorded. The second hut, at 3.6 metres by 3.2 metres, is the larger of the pair. Subcircular huts of this kind are a recurring feature of upland Kerry, often associated with booley farming, a seasonal practice in which cattle were driven to higher pastures in summer and tended from temporary shelters. The surviving field walls in the vicinity support the idea that this was a functioning agricultural site, organised and maintained over some period of time before it fell into disuse. The site sits within the broader archaeological landscape of the Iveragh Peninsula, which preserves an unusually dense concentration of such field systems and enclosures from various periods.

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