Hut site, Coomcallee, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Coomcallee, Co. Kerry

On the south-eastern flank of Carrauntoohil, Ireland's highest mountain, a small square hut sits at the north-western end of a saddle ridge in the townland of Coomcallee.

It is a modest thing, roughly two metres across and built without any particular care for finish, yet its position on one of the most exposed and demanding mountain shoulders in the country raises quiet questions about who built it, and why.

The structure is described as being of rough construction, suggesting it was functional rather than residential in any lasting sense. Its upper courses have been rebuilt at some point, meaning what survives today is partly a restoration of an older fabric. Square huts of this kind are found across upland Ireland and were typically used for seasonal purposes, whether by herders moving cattle to summer pastures in a practice known as transhumance, or by travellers and workers needing basic shelter in the hills. The Iveragh Peninsula, of which this corner of Kerry forms a part, has been surveyed extensively for its archaeological remains, and sites like this one represent the quieter, less celebrated end of that record, the everyday infrastructure of mountain life rather than the ceremonial or the monumental.

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Pete F
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