Hut site, Derrygorman, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
A modern road cuts straight through the middle of this early medieval enclosure at Derrygorman, bisecting it north to south as though the past were simply an inconvenience to be divided and passed through.
The rath itself, known locally by the placename Lismore or Lios Mór, meaning "great fort", survives in reasonably good condition despite this intrusion, sitting on level ground in the Corca Dhuibhne landscape of the Dingle Peninsula.
A rath is a roughly circular earthwork enclosure, typically dating from the early medieval period and associated with a farmstead or small settlement. Inside this one, two possible hut-sites have been identified. The first sits near the centre of the western half of the interior and survives as a grass-covered band of collapsed stone enclosing a roughly square area of about 5.2 metres across. The second lies just north of the western entrance gap and is now little more than a circular hollow, heavily overgrown. A trench to the south of the same entrance may represent a later drain rather than anything earlier. A souterrain, which is an underground stone-lined passage often used for storage or as a place of refuge, was previously recorded within the enclosure by the Kerry Archaeological Survey, but subsequent investigation could not locate it. Whether it has collapsed beyond recognition, been obscured by later activity, or was perhaps misidentified, is not currently known. The description of the site draws on J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, "Corca Dhuibhne", one of the more thorough regional surveys produced in Ireland during the latter decades of the twentieth century.