Hut site, Inis Tuaisceart, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a small, sea-cliff island four miles off the western tip of the Dingle Peninsula, a low mound of stones roughly six metres across sits on ground that has been largely abandoned for centuries.
It is a quiet anomaly: a possible second hut site within an Early Christian settlement on Inis Tuaisceart, the northernmost of the Blasket islands, on land so thin-soiled and rocky that only the southern half of the island ever showed any signs of human habitation at all.
Inis Tuaisceart covers 241 acres, rising from under 30 metres along its south-eastern edge to a maximum of 175 metres near the centre of its north-western side. The northern half of the island is entirely without archaeological trace. In the south, a small field system survives, and within it lies an Early Christian settlement associated with St. Brendan. Early Christian settlements of this type were often established by monks seeking remote, ascetic conditions, and the Blaskets, exposed and difficult to reach, would have suited that purpose well. Around 15 metres to the north of the principal recorded hut in that settlement sits the stone mound in question, interpreted as a possible second hut. The description comes from J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, published under the title Corca Dhuibhne.
Access to Inis Tuaisceart is not straightforward. The island has no permanent population and is bounded on all sides by sea-cliffs, meaning any landing depends heavily on sea conditions. What survives above ground is unassuming, a heap of stones that requires some archaeological imagination to read, but the broader setting places it within a tradition of remote island monasticism that shaped early medieval Ireland in ways that still leave traces along this coastline.