Hut site, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

On the south-east facing slope of Mangerton Mountain in County Kerry, a small oval outline barely manages to announce itself above the surface of the bog.

It is just 2.8 metres east to west and 2 metres north to south, built from drystone, a technique requiring no mortar, the stones simply stacked and fitted against one another. The wall has long since collapsed, and what remains stands only about 0.2 metres above ground, the bog gradually absorbing it. That anything survives at all is partly thanks to the preserving qualities of the peat, which has a habit of swallowing structures slowly while simultaneously preventing their complete disappearance.

The site sits in rough hill pasture, the kind of terrain that discourages casual wandering but rewards attention. Whoever built this structure chose an exposed and demanding location, and the reasons for that choice are now beyond recovery. Hut sites of this kind are found across upland Ireland, often associated with seasonal grazing practices, where people and livestock moved to higher ground in summer months. They may also have served as shelters for those working peat or managing the land. Seventeen metres to the north-east lies a separate enclosure, a small walled or banked area whose relationship to the hut is not definitively established, though the proximity suggests the two formed part of the same functional landscape at some point in the past.

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Pete F
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