Hut site, Com Dhíneol Theas, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the lower western slopes of the Mount Eagle and Slea Head ridge in County Kerry, the remains of a small ancient hut sit in a state of near-total dissolution.
What survives amounts to little more than a low scatter of stone, rising to roughly a metre in height, with walls that were once about seventy centimetres thick. It is the kind of site that a walker might cross without registering it at all, yet it represents a category of structure found throughout this part of the Dingle Peninsula, where generations of early inhabitants shaped the landscape in ways that time has largely reclaimed.
The site was recorded by the archaeologist R. A. S. Macalister in 1899, who noted that the structure was quadrilateral in plan, an unusual characteristic worth pausing over. Most early stone huts on the Dingle Peninsula belong to the clochán tradition, the beehive-shaped dry-stone cells associated with early medieval monastic and secular settlement, which are circular or oval in plan. A quadrilateral ground plan sets this example apart, though the surviving fabric, at roughly 4.1 metres across and standing only a metre high, offers little else to read with confidence. The ridge it sits below, running between Mount Eagle and Slea Head, is one of the most archaeologically dense corridors in Ireland, with souterrains, promontory forts, ogham stones, and early ecclesiastical sites clustered across the headland.