Hut site, Erneen, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Erneen, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope in Erneen, County Kerry, a low ring of drystone walling pushes up through the surface of the bog like something trying to resurface from a long sleep.

The structure is modest by any measure: a circular hut site just four metres in diameter, its wall no more than twenty centimetres above ground level and roughly sixty centimetres thick. That it is visible at all is partly down to the bog itself, which has preserved the outline while also consuming the surrounding landscape, leaving the stonework as the one legible detail on an otherwise rough stretch of hill pasture.

Drystone construction, which uses no mortar and relies entirely on the careful stacking of stone, was common across Ireland for thousands of years, employed for everything from field boundaries to small shelters and seasonal dwellings. A hut site of this scale in a upland setting would typically have served as a temporary or seasonal structure, perhaps associated with the old practice of transhumance, where livestock and their herders moved to higher ground during summer months. The location lends some weight to this reading: the slope faces south, catching what warmth the Kerry hills offer, and the position on a break in the hillside overlooks a river valley below, giving both shelter and outlook.

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Pete F
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