Hut site, Glanrastel, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
What looks at first glance like a low grassy mound in rough hill pasture beside the Glanrastel River turns out to be something far more deliberate.
The oval outline of this small stone-walled structure, measuring roughly 4.4 metres north to south and 3 metres east to west, has been absorbed into the hillside so thoroughly that the wall, now sod-covered, barely rises above ankle height on the outside. Yet the care taken in its construction is still legible in the ground itself.
Whoever built this hut understood the hill they were working with. On the southern, upslope side, the builders cut roughly 20 centimetres into the slope; on the northern, lower side, they built the wall up an additional 40 centimetres. The result was a level interior floor, sheltered from the hillside's natural gradient. A few basal stones still protrude along the western to eastern face of the outer wall, traces of a structure that once had more presence than it does now. Hut sites of this kind, small single-roomed enclosures typically associated with seasonal or pastoral settlement, appear across the uplands of Kerry and the wider Irish landscape, often in clusters. That pattern holds here too: a second hut site of the same type lies just 20 metres to the north, suggesting this was not an isolated dwelling but part of a small, organised use of the hillside.