Hut site, Graignagreana, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Graignagreana, Co. Kerry

On a slope in Graignagreana, in the south of County Kerry, the foundations of a small circular hut sit quietly in the landscape, measuring roughly 2.3 metres by 2.1 metres.

That is barely large enough to stand up and turn around in. Built in the drystone technique, where stones are carefully stacked without mortar to form a stable wall, it represents the kind of structure that once dotted the upland and coastal margins of the Iveragh Peninsula, used variously by farmers, herders, or those working the land at a remove from any permanent settlement.

The site sits about 150 metres downslope from a separate recorded monument, suggesting it did not exist in isolation but was likely part of a wider pattern of activity across this stretch of Kerry. The Iveragh Peninsula, which forms the largest of the great fingers of land reaching into the Atlantic from southwest Ireland, holds an unusually dense concentration of such remains, from early medieval enclosures to booley huts used during seasonal cattle grazing. Without further excavation it is difficult to assign a precise date to this particular structure, but the form and construction method place it within a long tradition of vernacular building that persisted in some areas well into the post-medieval period.

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