Hut site, Baile Na Bhfionnúrach, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the lower western slopes of Brandon Mountain in Co. Kerry, a group of circular stone huts sits within an enclosure that opens onto views in every direction.
The site is not dramatically elevated, yet its position is clearly deliberate, the kind of placement that suggests whoever built and used these structures wanted both shelter from the mountain above and a wide sightline across the surrounding landscape.
The enclosure contains the remains of three circular stone huts, the kind of dry-stone structures found across early medieval Ireland, typically associated with monastic or secular settlement on marginal upland ground. The best-preserved of the three survives only in its eastern half, but even that partial shell is substantial: an internal diameter of 5.3 metres, walls 1.5 metres wide and standing up to 1.1 metres high. Those dimensions speak to solid, considered construction rather than temporary shelter. The site was documented as part of the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, published in 1986 under the direction of J. Cuppage, a survey that remains a key reference for the extraordinary density of early monuments across this corner of Kerry.