Hut site, Cloghanecarhan, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Cloghanecarhan, Co. Kerry

On the southern slopes of Aghatubrid, on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a later field wall cuts straight through the interior of a circular drystone hut, as though whoever built it simply decided the older structure no longer needed to be treated as a boundary.

This is one of those small moments of layered history that the landscape around Ballinskelligs Bay quietly accumulates: an ancient dwelling absorbed into a more recent agricultural arrangement, neither demolished nor respected, just incorporated.

The circular hut, built using the drystone technique in which stones are stacked without mortar, measures roughly 5.3 metres by 4.3 metres and survives to a height of around 0.6 metres, with walls approximately 1.7 metres thick. A series of large flat stones, or flags, lines the outer wall-face at the south-west, and there is a possible entrance on the north-west side. The whole sits within a system of old field boundaries on the hillside, overlooking the bay to the south. About 14.7 metres to the south-east, a second and smaller rectangular hut, measuring 2.3 metres by 1.7 metres, is now completely overgrown. Its walls survive to only half a metre in height, and a possible entrance faces east. Both structures were recorded and described by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan in their 1996 archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, a comprehensive catalogue of the extraordinary density of early remains across this part of south Kerry.

The site sits within a wider landscape where early agriculture, settlement, and the slow reclamation of both by vegetation have blurred into one another over centuries. The overgrown rectangular hut in particular has been largely swallowed by the hillside, its outline legible only if you know to look for it. The flags flanking the circular hut's outer wall are worth noting when you visit; their size and placement suggest deliberate construction choices made by people who knew this slope and this view well.

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Pete F
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