Hut site, Bridia, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the north-western slopes of Broaghnabinnia, a mountain on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a low ring of stones sits in the rough ground with a quietness that only comes from very long abandonment.
The foundations are subcircular, roughly seven metres by six and a half, and the surviving wall stands less than half a metre high with a thickness of about three-quarters of a metre. Built in drystone, meaning without mortar, the structure is the kind that would have been raised and maintained by hand alone, each stone chosen and placed to lock against its neighbours.
Structures like this are scattered across upland Kerry, and their origins are rarely straightforward to pin down. Some belong to early medieval pastoral activity, when people moved livestock to higher ground during summer months, a practice sometimes called transhumance. Others are considerably older or younger. Without excavation it is difficult to say with any certainty what period this particular hut belongs to, or what kind of life was conducted inside it. What survives is the footprint: a space that was once enclosed, roofed in some perishable material, and inhabited or at least used regularly enough to warrant a permanent stone foundation on exposed hillside ground. The Bridia valley below sits between the McGillycuddy Reeks to the north and the ridge running south towards Broaghnabinnia itself, which gives some sense of how remote and weathered a setting this is.