Hut site, Cinn Aird Thoir, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the Dingle Peninsula at Cinn Aird Thoir, a low ring of stone sits in the landscape doing its best to go unnoticed.
It is a circular hut foundation, modest by any measure: roughly four and a half metres across, its walls surviving to about sixty centimetres in height and a metre in thickness. Those dimensions describe something that was once a dwelling, a shelter, or a working space, though the structure makes no obvious claim on the visitor's attention. It is the kind of thing you might step over without quite registering what it is.
Circular stone hut sites of this type are found across the Dingle Peninsula in considerable numbers, and their dates range widely, from the early medieval period back into prehistory in some cases. The peninsula, known in Irish as Corca Dhuibhne, preserves one of the densest concentrations of early field monuments in Ireland, a consequence of relatively low modern disturbance and the durability of drystone construction on upland ground. This particular foundation was catalogued as part of the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey compiled by J. Cuppage and published in 1986 by Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne in Ballyferriter, a landmark regional survey that documented hundreds of sites across the area. The measurements recorded there remain the primary description of the site.