Hut site, Barnastooka, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Barnastooka, Co. Kerry

On a hillside near Kilgarvan in County Kerry, a scatter of collapsed dry-stones traces the ghostly outline of a structure so modest it could easily be mistaken for a natural tumble of rock.

Measuring no more than 3.5 metres in length and 2.5 metres across, this roughly oval hut site sits low in the landscape, its fallen walls rising only about 40 centimetres above the surrounding ground. What makes it quietly arresting is not its size but its position: it was deliberately built against the inner face of a pre-existing settlement enclosure, using that larger boundary wall as its southern shelter, with a careful arc of set stones forming the northern edge. Someone, at some point, chose this exact spot and made it work.

The site came to light during archaeological survey work carried out by John Cronin and Associates ahead of wind farm development in the Barnastooka townland, conducted under licence in advance of construction by ESB Wind Development Ltd. It was recorded as a new find, previously unknown to archaeological inventories. The hut sits within or adjacent to a feature catalogued as a settlement enclosure, a type of enclosed farmstead common across early medieval Ireland, where a roughly circular or oval bank and ditch would define a domestic space and its outbuildings. The relationship between the hut and that enclosure suggests the two were likely connected in use, the smaller structure tucked inside the larger one for protection or convenience. The full southeastern extent of the hut remains uncertain, the collapsed stonework making it difficult to trace exactly where the structure ends.

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Pete F
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