Hut site, An Baile Breac, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, An Baile Breac, Co. Kerry

On the lower western slopes of Brandon Mountain in County Kerry, a small stone structure has been absorbed so thoroughly into a later field wall that it takes a careful eye to separate the ancient from the merely old.

What survives is a corbelled drystone hut, a type of shelter built without mortar by layering stones inward and upward until they close into a rough dome or vault, a technique with deep roots in early Irish building. The hut is probably originally circular, though one side is now defined by the later wall that swallowed part of it. It measures about 4.4 metres across and stands 1.6 metres high, modest dimensions that speak to function over comfort.

What makes this structure quietly unusual is the detail preserved at its northwest side, where a lintelled wall-cupboard, that is, a small recess roofed with a flat stone, sits directly above the lintelled entrance to a wall-chamber below it. Two separate interior features, one stacked above the other, suggest a degree of deliberate organisation inside what might otherwise be dismissed as a rough field shelter. The site was recorded and described as part of J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, the Corca Dhuibhne survey, which documented the remarkable density of early remains across this part of west Kerry. Brandon Mountain itself has long associations with early Christian activity, which gives any structure on its slopes a context worth considering, though no firm date is assigned to this particular hut.

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