Hut site, Derrygorman, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Derrygorman, Co. Kerry

Two ringforts sit within 2.6 metres of each other on a south-facing slope in Derrygorman, on the Dingle Peninsula, and the southernmost of the pair contains something that rewards closer attention: the collapsed remains of what were once small domestic buildings, their walls now reduced to low stony mounds barely distinguishable from the surrounding ground.

A ringfort, or rath, is a roughly circular enclosure defined by one or more earthen banks, commonly used as a farmstead during the early medieval period in Ireland. This particular example is univallate, meaning it has a single enclosing bank, and its interior was surveyed as part of J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region of the Dingle Peninsula. Earlier interpretation had identified the remains of five houses within the enclosure, but closer analysis suggests only three of the stony mounds can be reasonably read as structural. Two of the northernmost mounds appear to have been conjoined, forming what may have been a pair of connected rooms or adjoining structures. The eastern hut, modest even by the standards of early medieval domestic architecture, measures just 3.6 metres by 3 metres internally. A further mound near the south-east of the interior is thought to represent the western wall of a house that once backed directly onto the ringfort bank itself, using the enclosing earthwork as part of its own structure. The pair of raths sit close enough together to suggest coordinated use, perhaps by related households or a small farming community making the most of the gentle slope and the wide views it affords.

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