Hut site, Deelis, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Deelis, Co. Kerry

On a rough, east-facing hillside above a tributary of the Drimminboy River in south-west Kerry, the ground holds the faint outline of a circular dwelling that most walkers would step across without noticing.

The hut site at Deelis survives as a low earthen bank, barely more than a few centimetres proud of the surrounding grass in places, tracing a circle roughly 7.6 metres in diameter. Where the slope falls away to the south, the structure was built up to a height of around 0.8 metres on the outside, compensating for the uneven ground, and the outer face of the eastern scarp is reinforced with a rubble stone wall. That combination of earthwork and stone facing is easy to read once you know what you are looking at, a small circular enclosure formed from whatever materials were close to hand, shaped around the contours of the hill rather than imposed upon them.

Hut sites of this kind are scattered across the upland and coastal margins of Kerry, remnants of a pastoral way of life in which people, and the animals they tended, moved seasonally through the landscape. The precise date of this particular example is not recorded, but comparable structures in the region span a wide range of periods, from the early medieval centuries through to more recent transhumance practices, where families would shift livestock to higher summer pastures. What gives the Deelis site an additional layer of interest is the path that crosses its north-western sector, running on a north-east to south-west axis toward the Cummeengeera valley. Whether the path is older than the hut, younger, or broadly contemporary, is unknown, but the two features share the same piece of hillside, and the track cuts directly through the structure's edge, suggesting long and layered use of this particular route through the hills.

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Pete F
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