Hut site, Com Dhíneol Theas, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the southern slope of Com Dhíneol Theas, a quiet townland on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, the ground holds the faint outline of what may once have been two circular huts built side by side.
What survives is fragmentary, the kind of remains that require a certain patience to read, but the form they suggest, a pair of conjoined circular structures, points to a type of early habitation found scattered across the Irish landscape, where drystone or earthen walls once enclosed small, round living spaces often used by farmers, herders, or monastic communities.
The site was recorded as part of the Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, published in 1986 under the editorship of J. Cuppage. That survey, produced in association with Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, was one of the more thorough regional archaeological inventories undertaken in Ireland during the twentieth century, and it documented sites ranging from megalithic tombs to early Christian remains across one of the country's most archaeologically dense peninsulas. This particular site, catalogued as entry 1225, was described with appropriate caution: the remains may have been a pair of conjoined huts, but the fragmentation of the evidence leaves the interpretation open.