Hut site, Poulagower, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Poulagower, Co. Kerry

In a rough pasture on the southern edge of a level shelf cut into a south-facing Kerry slope, a small rectangular structure sits in near-total silence, its walls still largely standing despite the slow loss of the clay that once held them together.

The hut measures eight metres north to south and four metres east to west, making it a modest but deliberate space, and its walls, built from rough unmortared stone bonded originally with clay, still reach a height of around 1.4 metres in places. The mortar has long since been washed from both faces of the wall, leaving the stonework exposed and loosened, and the interior has been colonised almost entirely by ferns.

The entrance, just under a metre wide, sits at the centre of the east wall, an orientation that would have caught the morning light and faced away from the prevailing Atlantic weather. Clay-mortared stone construction of this kind is associated with a range of periods and uses in the Irish upland landscape, from early medieval seasonal settlement to post-medieval agricultural activity, and without excavation it is difficult to assign the Poulagower structure to any one era with confidence. What is clear is that someone chose this particular break in the slope with care: the level ground would have offered a relatively sheltered and stable platform, and the south-facing aspect would have made the most of whatever warmth the season allowed. Roughly 45 metres to the east, a second hut site survives, suggesting this was not an isolated dwelling but part of a small cluster, perhaps a seasonal farming settlement of the kind once common across Irish upland terrain.

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Pete F
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