Hut site, Oolagh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On a level terrace between Lough Caragh and Lough Cappanalea, in the uplands of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, sit the foundations of two small huts that are easy to overlook and difficult to date.
One is subcircular, the other rectangular, and both are modest in scale, the kind of structures that could have sheltered a person or small family for a season rather than a lifetime. What catches the eye, though, is the stonework: incorporated into both buildings are some very large facing stones, suggesting that whoever built here was either working with material already present on the terrace or taking considerable trouble over walls that, from their dimensions alone, might seem utilitarian at best.
The subcircular hut measures roughly three metres internally, while the rectangular one runs to about 3.7 metres by 2.4 metres. To the north-west, there are traces of what may have been an enclosing wall, which would give the whole arrangement the character of a small enclosed farmstead or seasonal settlement. The site may be the one referred to in local placename scholarship as Liosachán, a name recorded by Ó Cíobháin in 1978, and the Irish word lios generally denotes a type of enclosure or ringfort, which would be consistent with those possible wall remnants. Whether the structures themselves are genuinely old or relatively recent in date remains uncertain; the survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996 notes that both huts may be of comparatively recent origin, which in archaeological terms can mean anything from a few hundred years ago to the last century or two. The ambiguity is part of what makes the site quietly interesting: it sits in a landscape layered with human use, and these particular remains have not yet given up a clear answer.