Hut site, Maghanaboe, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Maghanaboe, Co. Kerry

On the level floor of the Glennahoo valley in County Kerry, a low circular ring of unmortared stone sits in rough pastureland, barely knee-height above the ground.

It measures just 4.55 metres across and survives to a height of only 0.8 metres, but its proportions and the careful laying of its drystone walls, meaning stone set without mortar, make clear this was once a deliberate structure rather than a field clearance heap.

The hut foundation sits within an old field system, suggesting it was never an isolated dwelling but part of a broader organised landscape, one in which people farmed, divided ground, and built shelters across this stretch of the Dingle Peninsula. The Glennahoo valley falls within Corca Dhuibhne, the westernmost reach of Kerry where the Irish language remains in everyday use, and where the land holds an unusual density of early remains. J. Cuppage documented the site in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula Archaeological Survey, a thorough regional survey that catalogued hundreds of monuments across this corner of Ireland. Whether the hut dates to the early medieval period or earlier is not specified, but its circular form and drystone construction are characteristic of domestic or pastoral shelters used across many centuries in Atlantic Ireland.

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Pete F
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