What makes them quietly arresting is their number: this is not an isolated dwelling but one of at least seven structures, all dating to the 19th century, grouped close enough together to suggest a community of some kind rather than a solitary outpost.

The site was identified and inspected in 2003, when field survey work confirmed that all seven huts belong to the same broad period. The 19th century in rural Kerry was a time of enormous demographic pressure followed by catastrophic collapse, and small temporary or seasonal shelters of this kind are often associated with the practices of that era, whether the grazing of cattle on upland pastures in summer, known as booleying, or the desperate improvisation of the Famine years. The notes do not specify which, and it would be a mistake to assume. What the physical evidence does suggest is that these structures were not anomalies; they were part of a pattern of life on this ground.