Hut site, Knocknabro, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Knocknabro, Co. Kerry

On a south-west-facing slope at Knocknabro in County Kerry, a small rectangular structure sits so low in the heather that it reads less as a building than as a disturbance in the ground.

Its walls, built from dry-laid stone without mortar, have long since collapsed, leaving a barely legible outline that measures roughly 3.2 metres along its north-east to south-west axis and 2 metres across. The interior wall face survives to only 0.2 metres in height, the exterior to 0.3 metres. A narrow entrance, 0.6 metres wide, opens in the south-east wall, oriented away from the prevailing weather of the Kerry uplands.

Drystone construction of this kind, where stones are carefully fitted together without binding material, is among the oldest and most widespread building traditions in Ireland. Structures like this one could belong to any number of periods, from early medieval pastoral use to relatively recent agricultural activity, and without excavation it is difficult to say more. What is clear is that someone, at some point, chose this exposed slope deliberately, perhaps for seasonal grazing, perhaps for reasons now impossible to recover. The rough, heather-clad pasture that surrounds it has absorbed the site almost entirely, leaving only the faint geometry of the walls as evidence that the hillside was once, in some small way, occupied.

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Pete F
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