Hut site, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

On the southern slope of Mangerton Mountain in County Kerry, a small oval hollow in the hillside marks where someone once made a shelter.

It is easy to miss: the walls have long since collapsed, and the bog has crept up around the remaining drystone masonry, leaving only a low ridge of stone protruding above the surface. What makes this particular structure quietly interesting is the care taken to level the interior against the gradient of the slope. The northern end has been cut roughly 0.8 metres into the hillside, while the southern end sits raised about 0.3 metres above it, the two adjustments together producing a roughly flat living surface inside a structure barely 2.6 metres across.

The hut sits on the western bank of the Kealgorm River, in what is now rough hill pasture. Drystone construction, which uses no mortar and relies instead on the careful selection and stacking of local stone, was common across Irish uplands for centuries and was used for everything from field boundaries to shelters for people and animals. Without excavation it is impossible to say with confidence when this particular hut was built or by whom, but the technique of cutting into the upslope to level a small dwelling is a practical response to mountain terrain that appears across many periods of Irish prehistory and early history. The collapsed wall, still standing to around 0.8 metres in places and roughly 0.6 metres thick, suggests a modest but solidly built structure, not a casual windbreak but something intended to last at least a season.

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Pete F
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