Hut site, Baile Na Habha, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the lower western slopes of Brandon Mountain in County Kerry, a cluster of old stone structures has been quietly absorbed into the working fabric of a modern farm.
Seven conjoined buildings now form part of the local field walls, which is itself a detail worth pausing on: at some point, the boundaries of living agriculture simply grew around these much older structures and incorporated them, rather than clearing them away. The result is a layered landscape where centuries of different land use sit almost seamlessly on top of one another.
Within the group, two circular huts are the most archaeologically legible. Connected by a communicating passage, they measure roughly 4.7 to 3.8 metres and 7 metres in internal diameter respectively, with walls surviving to a maximum height of one metre. The western hut is the more elaborate of the two, retaining four wall niches, small recesses built into the thickness of a stone wall, typically used for storage or to hold lamps and small objects, as well as a blocked recess that may once have opened into a full wall-chamber. The eastern hut has two niches of its own, but its subsequent history is written plainly inside it: at some point it was adapted as a sheep-shelter, with two cross-walls added to the interior, and one of the modern field walls now overlies the southern part of its original wall. The remaining three smaller structures in the group are ambiguous, possibly huts, possibly animal pens, though they clearly pre-date the field system around them. The site was documented by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, which remains the principal source for the Corca Dhuibhne region.