Hut site, Derrymaclavlode, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Derrymaclavlode, Co. Kerry

On a south-east-facing slope above the Clydagh River valley in County Kerry, a circle of tumbled stone just over two metres across breaks the surface of a shallow bog.

It is easy to miss: the wall, built without mortar in the drystone tradition, has collapsed to a height of only about twenty centimetres and is partially swallowed by grass and heather. Yet the outline is still legible, a small, deliberate structure that once sheltered a person or perhaps livestock, set into rough hill pasture that has changed little in centuries.

The site does not stand alone. A second hut site lies approximately five metres to the south-west, and an enclosure, a defined area bounded by a wall or bank, sits around fifty metres to the north-east. Together they suggest a small cluster of activity on this hillside, the kind of seasonal or marginal settlement that was once common across upland Ireland, where people moved animals to higher ground in summer or worked the edges of cultivable land. The Clydagh River valley below would have provided orientation and perhaps water, with the slope offering drainage and a measure of shelter from the prevailing weather.

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Pete F
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