Hut site, Baile Ristín, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the steep western slopes of Knockmoylemore mountain in the Corca Dhuibhne region of the Dingle Peninsula, a cluster of six small circular structures sits quietly in the landscape, their low stone walls still legible after what may be many centuries.
They are not grand monuments in any conventional sense, but they record something ordinary and persistent: the seasonal rhythms of people and animals moving through upland terrain.
The structures are built in the corbelled drystone technique, meaning the walls were constructed without mortar, with each course of stone set slightly inward to form a gradually narrowing, self-supporting form. The six foundations range considerably in size, from roughly 1.65 by 1.9 metres up to 3.2 metres in diameter. Two of them are thought to have functioned as booley huts, the temporary shelters used by herders during the summer practice of transhumance, when cattle were driven to upland grazing and someone had to stay with them. The remaining structures were most likely animal pens or enclosures rather than human dwellings. Taken together, the group suggests a small, seasonal settlement rather than a permanent habitation, a place worked and then abandoned each year as the weather turned. The site was recorded in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a landmark catalogue of the area's dense prehistoric and early historic remains.