Hut site, Clashmelcon, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
Within a promontory fort on the Kerry coast at Clashmelcon, a shallow depression in the ground has been quietly raising questions.
Recorded as a sub-circular area roughly 6.8 metres in diameter, with an opening of 3.2 metres facing east, it sits in the east-north-east sector of the fort and may represent the footprint of a hut, though the tentative language used by researchers signals that certainty remains out of reach.
Promontory forts, which use a headland's natural cliffs as their primary defence and add an earthen or stone rampart across the neck of land to complete the enclosure, are found along much of the Irish coastline. They tend to date broadly to the Iron Age, though many were used across long periods. The possible hut site recorded here by Toal in 1995 would, if confirmed, suggest that the Clashmelcon fort was not merely a place of refuge or defence but was, at least at some point, actually inhabited. A circular or sub-circular ground plan is typical of early Irish domestic structures, and an eastward-facing entrance would have offered shelter from prevailing westerly winds, a practical consideration on an exposed Atlantic headland. The features are suggestive rather than conclusive, and no excavation appears to have been undertaken to clarify the matter.