Hut site, Aghatubrid, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Aghatubrid, Co. Kerry

In a patch of low-lying boggy pasture on the Iveragh Peninsula, a small circle of upright stone slabs sits quietly in the landscape, its outer walls so thoroughly consumed by sod that it reads more as a slight thickening in the ground than any obvious ruin.

What it represents, though, is an early dwelling, a hut site of the kind that once housed people on this stretch of South Kerry for whom dry-stone construction and a tight circular floor plan were the practical answers to the climate and the terrain.

The structure follows a roughly circular plan, measuring around 3.7 metres by 3.3 metres internally, which gives a sense of just how compact the living space would have been. The upright slabs that form the setting average about 30 centimetres in both height and width, though the tallest stone, positioned on the western side and standing some 80 centimetres high, is thought to mark the original entrance. The external walling, where it can be traced beneath its covering of turf, appears to be roughly 80 centimetres thick. The site lies on the northern side of a tributary of the Derreen river, a quiet and unassuming location that would have offered access to water while keeping the structure close to the lower pasture ground.

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Pete F
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