Hut site, An Coimín, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the Bull's Head promontory, a broad headland pushing south-west into Dingle Bay, the ground is scattered with the low remains of at least fourteen ancient hut-sites spread across both flanks of the central ridge and along its summit.
What makes this cluster quietly arresting is its variety and density: the structures range in plan from sub-rectangular through oval to circular, with internal diameters running anywhere from two to six metres, and several of them are joined together, sharing walls in a way that suggests something more organised than casual, temporary shelter.
The huts are built in drystone, a technique requiring no mortar, where stones are carefully stacked to hold one another by weight and friction alone. Many of the structures here take advantage of whatever the landscape offered, incorporating sections of naturally outcropping rock directly into their walls. This kind of opportunistic construction is common across early Irish settlement sites, where the boundary between the built and the geological could be deliberately blurred. The survey of this area was carried out by J. Cuppage and published in 1986 as part of the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, which remains one of the more thorough records of the extraordinary concentration of ancient remains along this stretch of the Kerry coast.
The site sits within a landscape already dense with archaeological interest, and the hut grouping at An Coimín rewards patient looking. The low walls and stony banks are easy to miss at a glance, but once the eye adjusts to the scale, the outlines of the individual structures begin to separate themselves from the surrounding terrain, and the general shape of what was once a small, organised settlement starts to become legible.