Hut site, Fán, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Fán, Co. Kerry

On the south-eastern slopes of Mount Eagle, on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, the low stone foundations of two small conjoined structures sit quietly on the hillside above the townland of Fán.

What makes them worth pausing over is their arrangement: not a single room but a pair of connected spaces linked by a communicating passage, with an entrance opening outward from the southern structure. The southern cell is circular in plan, roughly 3.5 metres in diameter; the northern is probably D-shaped, a flattened half-circle, measuring around 1.7 by 1.7 metres. The walls survive to about a metre in height. A short distance to the south-east, the ground holds what may be the remains of a third structure, approximately 2.25 metres across.

This part of the Dingle Peninsula, the Corca Dhuibhne region, is extraordinarily dense with early settlement remains, and a site like this fits into a long tradition of drystone corbelled or walled hut construction associated with early medieval and earlier occupation of upland and coastal margins. The conjoined plan, with its internal passage connecting two differently shaped rooms, suggests a degree of intentional design that goes beyond simple shelter. Whether these were domestic dwellings, seasonal shelters for those working the slopes, or structures with some other purpose is not recorded. The site was documented by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, a comprehensive catalogue of the region's monuments that remains a foundational reference for the area.

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