Hut site, Clashnagarrane, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Clashnagarrane, Co. Kerry

Inside a rath on the Kerry landscape at Clashnagarrane, the outline of a small rectangular building survives in the form of large sandstone boulders arranged along three sides of what was once, most likely, a domestic space.

A rath, to give the term its due, is a ringfort, typically an enclosed farmstead of the early medieval period, defined by earthen banks and ditches. That the hut sits within one places it in a very particular kind of intimate world, the daily life of a household going about its business inside a defended enclosure, probably somewhere between the fifth and twelfth centuries.

The structure measures approximately 5.6 metres east to west and at least 3.2 metres north to south, with the surviving wall reaching around half a metre in height along the western, northern, and eastern sides. The southern wall is absent, whether lost to time, robbed out for later building, or simply never completed in stone is unclear. The boulders themselves are sandstone, a material readily available across much of Kerry, and their size suggests they were placed with some intention rather than casually gathered. Roughly six metres to the north lies a possible souterrain, an underground stone-lined passage or chamber of the kind commonly associated with ringforts, used variously for storage, refuge, or both. The two features together suggest a site that was, at some point, a functioning and reasonably well-appointed settlement.

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Pete F
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