Hut site, Garranebane, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Garranebane, Co. Kerry

Inside a caher on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, three circular stone huts sit arranged across a level interior, their walls still partly standing after what is likely more than a thousand years.

A caher, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a type of early medieval stone-walled enclosure, essentially a ring fort built from drystone rather than earthen banks, and this one at Garranebane preserves not just its outer boundary but the domestic structures once sheltered within it.

The largest of the three huts is positioned in the north-east quadrant, where it presses up against the enclosing bank itself. Its internal dimensions measure 6.2 metres by 5.9 metres, making it a reasonably substantial space by the standards of early medieval rural life in Ireland. The walls average 1.5 metres wide and survive to around 0.75 metres in height. Where the inner face has been exposed, the stonework is regularly coursed with thin slabs, suggesting a degree of care and skill in its construction rather than simple rough-stacking. No entrance has been identified on the largest hut, which leaves open questions about how the structure was originally accessed and oriented within the enclosure.

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