Hut site, Inchee, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the western bank of the Finglas river in Inchee, County Kerry, a low ring of drystone walling sits in pasture, its interior choked with loose stone.
It is easy to walk past without a second thought, and that is part of what makes it quietly compelling. This was once a circular hut, built without mortar in the ancient drystone tradition, its walls still reaching around seventy centimetres in height and some one point three metres thick. The structure measures roughly six metres across, and its entrance faced east, a common orientation in early vernacular building that may have been practical, spiritual, or simply a matter of catching the morning light out of the prevailing westerly wind.
What gives the structure an additional layer of interest is the semicircular annex that abuts the outer face of the wall on the northern side. Annexes of this kind can serve various purposes in early settlement archaeology, from animal penning to storage, and their presence often suggests a site that was more than a temporary shelter. Drystone hut sites of this type are scattered across the Iveragh Peninsula, that broad southwestern arc of Kerry that takes in some of the oldest-settled land in Ireland. The documented record for this particular site draws on the comprehensive archaeological survey of South Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, a volume that catalogued hundreds of such survivals across the peninsula and remains a key reference for the region's early built environment. Precise dating for hut sites of this form can be difficult without excavation, and none is recorded here.