Hut site, Letter, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Letter, Co. Kerry

On the eastern face of Beenmore, in the boggy upland pasture above Coomnacronia Lake, a cluster of ancient stone huts sits largely unnoticed among the sheep-grazed slopes of the Kerry hills.

What makes this place quietly remarkable is not any single structure but the arrangement: four hut sites positioned so that each is visible from the others, two sitting at an elevation of 350 metres and two more roughly 34 metres lower to the north-east. Then, 500 metres further downhill, another nine hut sites appear, suggesting that what survives here is a fragment of a much more extensive upland settlement.

The huts themselves are built in the drystone tradition, meaning walls constructed from fitted boulders without mortar, a technique found across prehistoric and early medieval Ireland wherever suitable stone was close at hand. At this particular site, 300 metres north of Coomnacronia Lake, two huts survive in poor condition, their outlines defined by little more than scattered boulders. One is circular, with an internal diameter of about three metres, walls surviving to just 0.3 metres in height and 0.5 metres thick. No entrance is visible. Immediately to its north-west, an oval hut survives with internal dimensions of five metres along its north-west to south-east axis and two metres across. Together, they are modest structures, the kind easily overlooked on a hillside walk. The broader complex sits on the eastern face of Beenmore, with Drung Hill to the north and long views to the north-east down the valley past Curra Hill, at 275 metres the highest point in that line of hills, out towards Dingle Bay, and east towards Seefin Mountain.

The site lies on upland terrain that remains rough going, currently used for sheep grazing. Anyone making their way up the eastern face of Beenmore should be prepared for boggy ground underfoot, particularly in wetter months. The huts themselves are subtle, low to the ground and partially absorbed back into the landscape, so knowing to look for a rough circular or oval outline of boulders rather than any standing architecture is useful before setting out.

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Pete F
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