Hut site, Lisleibane, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Lisleibane, Co. Kerry

On the north-eastern slopes of Knockbrinnea, above the western bank of the Gaddagh river, three circular stone foundations sit quietly overlooking a wide northern prospect.

They are modest in scale and easy to overlook, yet their arrangement tells a small, legible story about how people once organised domestic or pastoral space on this exposed Kerry hillside.

Two of the huts are conjoined, their walls sharing mass in a way that suggests deliberate planning rather than accidental proximity. The larger of the pair measures around 4.1 metres in diameter, with surviving wall height of roughly half a metre and wall thickness of 1.3 metres; its entrance faces north. The smaller adjoining structure is 2.5 metres across. A third hut stands independently, about six metres to the north-west, with a diameter of 3.5 metres and walls still reaching 0.7 metres in places. Circular huts of this type are a recurring feature of the Irish upland landscape and are associated with a range of periods and uses, from early medieval settlement to later seasonal booley sites, where herders temporarily sheltered with their livestock during summer grazing. The Iveragh Peninsula, of which this hillside forms a part, is particularly dense with such remains, its terrain having preserved traces of occupation that lower, more intensively farmed ground long ago erased.

The site sits in an area where the Gaddagh river threads through ground that eventually rises towards the higher terrain of the MacGillycuddy's Reeks. The views northward from the slope are expansive, which may have made the location practical for watching over grazing animals across a broad sweep of valley. The three foundations, low and grass-covered, are the kind of remains that reward a slow look rather than a quick glance.

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