Hut site, Lios Na Mbóbhán, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Lios Na Mbóbhán, Co. Kerry

On a gently sloping hillside facing west over the Owenmore valley in County Kerry, a stone wall still stands to a height of 1.2 metres on one side, propped against an earthen bank as though using it for shelter.

The other side has long since tumbled, leaving only a low, grass-grown swell in the ground. This is one of at least two hut-sites set within a sub-circular enclosure at Lios Na Mbóbhán, and what makes it quietly arresting is the detail of its construction: the surviving wall appears to have been slightly corbelled, meaning the stones were laid so that each course projected inward over the one below, gradually closing the roof without the need for timber or other external supports. It is a technique found across early settlement sites on the Dingle Peninsula, suited to a landscape where good timber was scarce and good stone was everywhere.

The circular hut measures roughly 3.95 metres in internal diameter, built hard against the eastern bank of the enclosure, which itself faces the valley below. A raised area to the south, between this hut and the enclosing bank, is bounded on its western side by another low, stony bank, and it may represent the very ruined remains of a second hut, though the collapse is now so complete that little can be said with confidence. The site was documented by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Dingle Peninsula archaeological survey, published under the title Corca Dhuibhne, a comprehensive study of the remarkable density of early remains on this part of the Kerry coast. The Dingle Peninsula carries an exceptional concentration of such enclosed settlements, many of them associated with early medieval farming communities who worked small plots on slopes just like this one.

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