Hut site, Knocknabro, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a south-west-facing slope at Knocknabro in County Kerry, almost swallowed by heather and rushes, the low outline of an oval hut survives in rough pasture scattered with rock outcrops.
It measures roughly 3.9 metres along its north-east to south-west axis and 2.3 metres across, a space barely large enough to stand up in, let alone turn around comfortably. The wall that defines it, built from earth and stone and now heather-covered, still stands to around half a metre in height and is about 0.6 metres thick. A possible entrance opens to the north-west, though the interior is so choked with rushes that little of the floor can actually be seen.
What makes this small structure quietly interesting is not what it contains but what sits beside it. A second hut site adjoins it directly at the south-east, the two sharing an external wall in a way that suggests some degree of planning or at least prolonged use of the same ground. Hut sites of this kind, simple drystone or earth-and-stone enclosures set into hillside pasture, occur across Kerry and the wider Irish uplands, and their dating is often difficult to pin down without excavation. They may relate to seasonal grazing practices, to periods of agricultural pressure that pushed settlement onto marginal land, or to much earlier occupation entirely. The Kerry landscape carries layers of such use, and sites like this one tend to be noticed only when someone is already looking.