Hut site, Ballagh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Ballagh, Co. Kerry

On a stretch of ground in Ballagh, County Kerry, a barely-there oval of stones traces the outline of what was once a small shelter.

The wall survives to a height of only fifteen to twenty centimetres in places, and the whole footprint measures just three and a half metres across at its widest point. Easy to walk past without registering it as anything deliberate, it is precisely the kind of site that repays a second look.

What the remains describe is a simple hut site, the term used for the ground-level traces of a small structure, typically circular or oval in plan, defined by a low stone wall that would once have supported a roof of turf, thatch, or timber. The oval interior here runs roughly east to west, and within its western sector a smaller defined area, about two metres by one and a quarter, is marked out by its own arrangement of stone. Whether this inner space functioned as a sleeping area, a pen for animals, or some kind of storage division is impossible to say with certainty from the surviving fabric alone. The structure is modest even by the standards of early rural building, suggesting a temporary or seasonal use rather than a permanent dwelling.

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Pete F
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