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, someone once carved a level platform out of a hillside, built a stone enclosure around it, and settled in.

The effort involved in that single act of ground-preparation says something about how seriously the site was chosen and constructed. The roughly circular cashel, a type of dry-stone enclosure used as a farmstead or dwelling during the early medieval period, is one of a series of similar settlements running along this same stretch of slope, suggesting that at some point this part of the Dingle Peninsula supported a small, dispersed community making use of the same terrain.

The interior of the enclosure tilts gently down towards the north-west, but the south-eastern sector was deliberately built up, probably to create a flat surface for the stone hut inside. The retaining edge of that artificial terrace can still be traced for around 9.2 metres from the southern wall, held in place by drystone masonry averaging about half a metre in height. The hut itself has suffered considerable collapse, and its inner face is largely obscured, but the outer face can still be followed along the eastern half of the structure and briefly at the west. The walls stand up to 0.9 metres on the interior and 1.35 metres on the exterior. One small detail survives with unexpected clarity: a lintelled niche in the inner eastern wall, just 45 centimetres wide, 50 centimetres high, and 18 centimetres deep, set barely above ground level. Its purpose is unrecorded, but niches of this kind in comparable structures are generally thought to have held lamps, vessels, or small objects. The entrance, at the north-east, is now a 70-centimetre gap with facing remaining only on its north-western side. The archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne area, published by J. Cuppage in 1986, recorded these details and placed the site within the broader pattern of early settlement on the Dingle Peninsula.

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