Hut site, Baile An Lochaigh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Baile An Lochaigh, Co. Kerry

On the steep, rock-strewn lower slopes at the eastern end of Com an Lochaigh, two small circular structures sit roughly 75 metres apart beside the western wall of a long-disused field.

They are corbelled drystone huts, a form of construction in which flat stones are laid in overlapping rings, each course projecting slightly inward over the one below, until the builder can close the roof with a single capstone, all without mortar. The technique is ancient and widespread on the Dingle Peninsula, and these two examples sit quietly in a landscape that seems largely indifferent to their presence.

The southern hut is the more architecturally interesting of the pair. Its internal diameter is 3.1 metres, its walls are 1.6 metres thick, and it stands to a height of 2.8 metres. Built into that considerable wall thickness is a low passage, 1.5 metres long, just 45 centimetres wide and 30 centimetres high, presumably a crawl entrance, along with a small niche set into the wall interior. Details of this kind suggest a structure intended for more than casual shelter. The site was recorded by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a foundational piece of fieldwork that documented the extraordinary concentration of early remains across this part of County Kerry.

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