Hut site, Baile An Lochaigh, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Baile An Lochaigh, Co. Kerry

On the steep, rocky northern slopes of Com an Lochaigh in Kerry, a small patch of level ground holds something easy to miss and easier to misread.

Two circular stone huts sit close together, and the western one, measuring 3.1 metres across and still standing to a height of 1.5 metres, has been quietly repurposed at some point in its long afterlife: someone built a sheep shelter inside it, tucking a functional modern need inside the bones of something far older.

Circular stone huts of this kind are a recurring feature of the Dingle Peninsula landscape, where generations of people built dry-stone enclosures for shelter, storage, and seasonal use. Their exact dates are often difficult to pin down without excavation, but paired huts sited together like these suggest a small working settlement, perhaps used by those grazing animals on the higher ground during summer months, a practice known in Ireland as booleying. The site was documented by J. Cuppage in the 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region, a thorough catalogue of the Dingle Peninsula's remarkable concentration of field monuments.

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Pete F
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