Hut site, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

On the south-west-facing slope of Mangerton Mountain in County Kerry, a circular stone hut sits reduced to little more than a low ring of collapsed drystone walling, barely knee-height and just 2.3 metres across.

That is a modest footprint by any measure, smaller than a modern garden shed, yet two upright slabs still stand along its western arc, suggesting that whatever sheltered here once had a deliberate orientation to the landscape rather than merely following the contour of the ground.

The structure is built in the drystone tradition, meaning the wall was raised without mortar, relying entirely on the careful placement of stone. The wall survives to around 0.3 metres in height and 0.7 metres in thickness, the kind of proportions that indicate a more substantial original build now largely tumbled. What makes the setting more than a single curiosity is the company it keeps. At least three other hut sites lie within 50 metres, two of them 17 and 43 metres to the south, and a fourth adjoins this one to the east-south-east. Immediately to the south-west, the remains of a field boundary survive as a relict wall, a fragment of a wider network of enclosures that once organised the hillside. Taken together, the cluster points to a period when this rough hill pasture on Mangerton supported some form of sustained, organised activity, whether seasonal grazing, small-scale agriculture, or a more permanent upland settlement, though the notes do not offer a precise date or cultural attribution for the site.

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Pete F
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