Hut site, Glandine, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the eastern slopes of the Finglas river valley in Kerry, a small circular hut sits pressed against the outer wall of an ancient enclosure, its entrance gap still facing west after more than a thousand years.
What makes the arrangement quietly odd is that the hut sits outside the main enclosure rather than within it, tucked against the bank as though seeking shelter from it, while somewhere beneath the enclosure's interior a souterrain, a roofed underground passage or chamber typically used for storage or refuge, runs through the earth, now entirely inaccessible.
The enclosure itself is a univallate rath, meaning a ringfort defined by a single encircling bank and ditch, a type of defended farmstead common across early medieval Ireland, typically associated with the period between roughly the fifth and twelfth centuries. This one occupies a commanding position on the valley slope, with wide views to the east over the Finglas river valley on the Dingle Peninsula. The circular hut abutting its western bank is modest even by the standards of its era: three metres in internal diameter, defined by an earthen bank reinforced with some stone, that bank rising to 1.7 metres on the side it shares with the main enclosing wall, and dropping to just half a metre on the opposite side. The entrance gap, 2.5 metres wide, faces west. The structure was documented in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region of the Dingle Peninsula, a survey that remains one of the more thorough records of this densely layered landscape.