Hut site, Baurearagh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
In the bogland of Baurearagh in south-west Kerry, a small circle of stones protrudes just enough above the waterlogged ground to suggest that something deliberate once stood here.
The remains form a circular hut site roughly 2.7 metres in diameter, its drystone walls, built without mortar by stacking and fitting stones together, now reduced to a height of around 0.3 metres, with the lower courses half-swallowed by the bog and the upper courses collapsed around them. At the south-east section of the wall, a single upright slab still stands, measuring 0.8 metres high and 1.2 metres long, holding its position while the rest of the structure has given way to time and wet ground.
The hut sits within the south-east sector of a wider enclosure, suggesting it was not a solitary structure but part of a more organised use of this landscape. Circular drystone hut sites of this kind are found across Kerry and the broader western seaboard, often associated with seasonal farming activity, the keeping of livestock on upland or marginal ground during summer months, or earlier permanent settlement. The bog itself is as much a part of the story as the stones; what was once workable or at least habitable ground has gradually been claimed by accumulating peat, which, while obscuring the archaeology, has also helped preserve what little remains above the surface.