Hut site, Gowlanes, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
High on the southern slopes of Eagles Hill in County Kerry, two ancient structures sit in open mountain terrain, attended only by wind and the remnants of a field system that has not been worked in centuries.
What makes the site quietly arresting is not scale but specificity: these are not vague humps in the ground but deliberate constructions of upright slabs, boulders, and natural outcrop, arranged with evident purpose by people whose daily lives unfolded in a landscape that would be barely recognisable to a modern visitor.
The larger of the two structures is roughly rectangular, measuring 7.7 metres by 4.9 metres, its walls formed from upright slabs averaging half a metre in height, with the northern side incorporating large boulders and natural rock outcrop. At the western end stands a single tall orthostat, an upright standing stone, rising to 1.7 metres, considerably taller than the rest of the walling and suggesting either a structural or perhaps a more symbolic function. About 40 metres to the north sits a second, smaller oval structure, again built from upright slabs and boulders, measuring 5 metres by 3.4 metres. Both sit within the traces of an old field system, which implies a settled, agricultural life rather than purely seasonal use. The Iveragh Peninsula, where this site lies, is unusually rich in such early remains, a consequence of both its ancient settlement patterns and the relative absence of later disturbance on its higher ground. The structures were documented as part of a comprehensive archaeological survey of South Kerry compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996.