Hut site, Canburrin, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Canburrin, Co. Kerry

On a shelf cut into the upper northern slopes of Beenduff, overlooking the head of the Carhan river valley in south Kerry, four drystone huts sit in varying states of survival.

Three are subcircular in plan, one is rectangular, and all were built using corbelling, a technique in which courses of stone are laid so that each slightly overhangs the one below, eventually closing to form a roof without the use of mortar or timber. They are well-built structures, their entrances generally facing east, and the shelf on which they stand appears to have been revetted on its northern side, meaning the ground itself was shaped and supported with stonework to create a stable platform on the slope.

The group belongs to a class of upland site found across the Iveragh Peninsula, the great south-western arm of Kerry that takes in the Ring of Kerry and some of the most rugged mountain terrain in Ireland. Clusters of corbelled huts in such locations are generally associated with seasonal occupation, particularly the practice of booleying, whereby livestock were driven to higher pastures in summer and attended by herders who lived temporarily on the hill. The Carhan valley below has its own quiet historical weight; the river drains a landscape long settled and farmed, and the elevated shelf above it would have offered both shelter from the prevailing winds and a clear view over the ground below. Of the four huts, two have now collapsed internally, and stone rubble surrounds each one, though enough remains standing to read their original form. One of the surviving structures measures roughly three metres by one and a half, standing to about a metre and a quarter in height, with walls approximately a metre thick.

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Pete F
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