Hut site, Knocknabro, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a south-facing slope above the valley of the Clydagh River in County Kerry, a small rectangular hut sits in rough, heather-clad hill pasture, its lower walls still largely intact despite centuries of exposure.
What makes this particular ruin quietly arresting is not any single dramatic feature but the accumulated evidence of careful, practical construction. The builders cut the northern portion of the interior floor into the hillside itself, dropping it by around 0.4 metres to level out what would otherwise have been an awkward, sloping living space. The walls, built in drystone style without mortar, are still standing to about a metre in height and measure 0.6 metres thick, with rubble from the collapsed upper courses spilling downslope to the south. A narrow entrance, just 0.6 metres wide, opens at the south-east corner.
The hut measures roughly 3.3 metres east to west and 2.9 metres north to south, making it a compact but purposeful structure. It does not stand alone. Two further hut sites lie nearby, one approximately 9 metres to the west and another around 26 metres to the north, and a relict field wall survives some 24 metres to the west. Together, these remains suggest a small cluster of activity on this hillside rather than a single isolated shelter, the kind of marginal upland settlement that was once far more common across Kerry's higher ground, where families or seasonal workers would graze livestock on hill pasture during summer months, a practice known in Ireland as booleying. The relict field wall reinforces this picture, hinting at some attempt to manage or enclose the land around these structures, however modest that effort may have been.