Hut site, An Bhánóg Theas, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a south-facing slope in An Bhánóg Theas, on the Dingle Peninsula, there is a small enclosed settlement that has been quietly dissolving into the hillside for well over a thousand years.
What survives is modest but legible: a univallate rath, meaning a ringfort enclosed by a single earthen or stone bank, and within it the outline of a single hut, its circular wall now reduced to a low stony bank roughly two metres wide and less than a metre high.
The hut itself measures around six metres across internally, which gives a sense of the domestic scale involved; this would have been a compact but functional living space, probably roofed with timber or thatch in its working life. The entrance faces east, a common orientation in early medieval Irish settlement, and on the south-western side a low concentric mound curves around the exterior of the hut, adding a subtle secondary layer of enclosure whose purpose is not entirely clear. The site was recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a thorough cataloguing of the extraordinary density of early remains in this part of County Kerry.