Hut site, Long Island, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Long Island, Co. Kerry

On Long Island off the coast of Kerry, a small structure sits so quietly in the landscape that it is easy to mistake it for a natural rise in the ground.

Covered in sod and presenting itself as little more than a stony bank, this ancient hut is only recognisable on closer inspection as something deliberately made. Its subrectangular plan, a roughly rectangular form with slightly irregular corners common in early vernacular building, measures just 3.1 metres east to west and 2.4 metres north to south internally. That is a notably compact interior, barely enough space for a few people to shelter, which raises questions about how it was used and by whom.

What survives is the lower portion of drystone walling, a technique in which stones are stacked without mortar, relying instead on careful horizontal coursing to hold the structure together. Sections of this coursed masonry are still visible along the northern, eastern, and western interior faces, rising to around half a metre in height, with the walls themselves averaging 1.5 metres thick. An entrance gap 0.8 metres wide opens to the east, a typical orientation that would have offered some shelter from prevailing westerly winds. The hut does not stand in isolation; it abuts the southern side of a second hut and is partly built into what appears to be a shared enclosing element, suggesting that these structures formed part of a small cluster rather than a single isolated dwelling. The whole sits on a low platform defined by scarps to the northeast and southwest, indicating that whoever built here put some effort into levelling or selecting a workable surface.

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Pete F
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