Hut site, Baile An Tsléibhe, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
High on the eastern slopes of Mount Eagle, on the Dingle Peninsula, there survives a small circular structure that most walkers would step over without a second thought.
It is a corbelled drystone hut, built without mortar using a technique in which each course of stones is laid so that it projects slightly inward over the one below, allowing a domed or beehive-shaped roof to form without any timber or cement. This one is modest even by the standards of its type: two metres in diameter, surviving to a height of one and a half metres.
The Dingle Peninsula, known in Irish as Corca Dhuibhne, is one of the most archaeologically layered landscapes in Ireland, and structures of this kind are scattered across its hillsides and clifftops in considerable numbers. They are generally associated with early medieval monastic or pastoral activity, though many are difficult to date with precision without excavation. This particular foundation was documented as part of the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey published by J. Cuppage in 1986, a comprehensive catalogue of the peninsula's monuments that remains a key reference for the area. The site sits at Baile An Tsléibhe, a townland name that translates roughly as the settlement of the mountain, which is fitting enough for a place this exposed and this spare.