Hut site, Com An Bhúlaeraigh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Com An Bhúlaeraigh, Co. Kerry

On the south-eastern slopes of Beennabrack mountain, among the loose scree and sparse grass of the Dingle Peninsula, sits a small circular wall that has quietly served two very different purposes across its lifetime.

It measures roughly four metres across, rises to about a metre in height, and its drystone walls, built without mortar in the traditional manner, are around one and a half metres thick. At some point, whoever last had practical use of it decided it worked well enough as a sheep-pen, and so it became one. That second life is what makes it easy to overlook as anything older.

The structure sits on a small grassy terrace cut into the steep hillside above Com An Bhúlaeraigh, a remote valley on the Corca Dhuibhne, the Dingle Peninsula. It was recorded in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the peninsula, a systematic effort to document the extraordinary density of early remains across this part of County Kerry. The circular drystone hut type is well represented in this landscape, associated broadly with early settlement and pastoral activity, though pinning down precise dates for individual examples without excavation is rarely straightforward. What the thick walls and careful construction suggest is a building intended to last, not a temporary shelter thrown up in a hurry.

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