Hut site, Baile An Chnocáin, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Baile An Chnocáin, Co. Kerry

On the lower western slopes of Brandon Mountain in County Kerry, a circular stone enclosure sits quietly in the landscape, containing the remnants of at least seven stone huts and a souterrain, the latter being an underground stone-lined passage typically used in early medieval Ireland for storage or refuge.

The whole complex is a cashel, a type of drystone ringfort enclosed by a substantial wall, and this one has endured long enough that later hands have already come and gone, leaving their own modifications layered into the original fabric.

One of the huts within the enclosure has been recorded in some detail. Its internal diameter measured roughly 5.5 metres, though that figure comes with a caveat: alterations made to the western portion of the interior mean a precise measurement is no longer possible. The inner face of the wall survives to a height of 1.22 metres, while the outer face, visible at the north-west, reaches approximately 1.35 metres, with a further 0.8 metres of later walling added on top of that. Tucked into the south-east of the interior, at present ground level, there is a wall-cupboard, a small recess built directly into the stonework, the kind of practical detail that makes these structures feel less like ruins and more like former homes. The main entrance would have opened from the south-west sector, though the wall there has not survived. These details were first systematically recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, published under the Irish title Corca Dhuibhne, a survey that remains a key reference for the archaeology of this part of the Iveragh and Dingle area.

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