Hut site, Cloghanecarhan, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Cloghanecarhan, Co. Kerry

In the south-western corner of an old enclosure on the Iveragh Peninsula, a low circular mound sits quietly under a covering of sod and grass.

To a casual eye it reads as nothing more than a slight rise in the ground, but beneath that turf lie the stone foundations of a circular hut, its walls averaging nearly one and a half metres thick and still standing, in places, a few centimetres proud of the surrounding ground. That combination, a modest interior space of five metres across paired with walls of such substantial build, is characteristic of early medieval or prehistoric domestic construction in Ireland, where thick stone courses served both as structural support and insulation against the Atlantic climate.

The hut sits within a larger enclosure, the kind of feature often referred to in Irish archaeology as a cashel or ringfort, depending on whether its boundary was defined by stone or earthwork. These enclosed settlements were common across Kerry and the wider Irish landscape from the early centuries of the first millennium onwards, and the presence of a subsidiary structure in the south-western quadrant follows a pattern seen at many comparable sites. Two ill-defined gaps in the hut wall, one facing roughly north-east and one south-west, suggest the positions of former entrances, though the degraded state of the stonework makes any firm conclusion difficult. The site was recorded and described by archaeologists Aidan O'Sullivan and Jerry Sheehan as part of their comprehensive survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press in 1996.

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