Hut site, Gloragh, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Gloragh, Co. Kerry

High on the south-western slopes of Knocknagantee, on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a small cluster of drystone structures sits in open mountain terrain, largely ignored by the walking routes and tourist trails that thread through this part of South Kerry.

There are four of them in total, low and austere, built without mortar in the manner known as drystone construction, where carefully selected stones are stacked and interlocked to hold their form through weight and balance alone rather than any binding material.

One of the group is particularly well defined. It is roughly square in plan, measuring approximately 2.9 metres by 2.4 metres, with walls around a metre thick. The north-western wall is built from block-like upright stones set on end, giving it a more deliberate, almost architectural quality compared to the looser rubble style common in field enclosures. An entrance on the western side is formed by a pair of upright stones set roughly 0.9 metres apart, a simple but intentional threshold. Structures of this kind on the higher slopes of Irish mountains are often associated with seasonal farming activity, particularly the practice of booleying, whereby people and livestock moved to upland pastures during the summer months, occupying temporary shelters for the duration. Whether that explains this particular cluster is not certain, but the setting and scale are consistent with that tradition. The site was documented as part of the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996.

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