Hut site, Derreengarrinshagh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On an east-facing hillside in south-west Kerry, a small circle of collapsed stone just barely breaks through the surface of the bog.
The structure is modest to the point of near-invisibility: a circular hut site measuring only 2.2 metres in diameter, its drystone wall, built without mortar in the tradition of dry-stone construction, now lying in a low, grass-covered heap no more than 0.4 metres above the ground. Loose stones scattered around the outside are the only other indication that something deliberate was once built here.
The site sits in rough hill pasture, sheltered to the north and south by natural ridges of outcropping rock, with an east-facing aspect that would have caught the morning light. Close by, there is a relict field boundary, the remnant of an old enclosure or land division, suggesting this was once a place of organised, if small-scale, human activity. Together, the hut and the field boundary point to a vanished agricultural or pastoral landscape, one that the accumulating bog has slowly absorbed over centuries. Hut sites of this kind are found across upland Ireland and are often associated with seasonal grazing, where people would move livestock to higher ground in summer, a practice known in Irish tradition as booleying. The Derreengarrinshagh example offers no inscription, no decoration, and no surviving roof; just a ring of old stone slowly dissolving back into the hillside.