Hut site, Coolnagoppoge, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a north-facing slope in the valley of the Glashanaglaragh stream, in the rough hill pasture of Coolnagoppoge, there sits a circular hut site so small it would barely shelter two people standing together.
Its internal diameter measures just 1.8 metres, and what remains of its drystone wall, built without mortar by stacking and fitting stones against one another, has largely collapsed to a thickness of around 0.6 metres and a height of 0.5 metres. The eastern arc of the wall survives in the best condition, giving a clearer sense of the original form than the rest of the circuit can manage.
The structure adjoins the western side of a relict field boundary, meaning the hut was built deliberately against or alongside an existing division in the landscape, one that has itself long since fallen out of use. Together, the two features suggest a moment of agricultural life in Kerry that has since receded entirely, leaving only this low curve of tumbled stone in the hillside grass. Whether the hut served as a temporary shelter for someone working the land nearby, a place to overwinter animals, or something else entirely is not recorded. Its modest scale points toward a functional rather than a domestic purpose, though certainty is difficult at this distance.