Hut site, Scarteen, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Scarteen, Co. Kerry

On a steep south-facing slope in the Kerry uplands, between the summits of Knocklomena and Boughil, nine small stone structures sit in various states of near-collapse.

None of them rises more than a course or two above ground level, and the largest has an internal diameter of under four metres. They are easy to overlook, which is perhaps why they survive at all.

The complex consists of crudely built huts and enclosures, all of boulder construction, scattered across the hillside alongside the remains of old field walls. The enclosures, rather than the huts themselves, are thought to have served farming purposes, suggesting this was a working landscape rather than a settlement in any permanent sense. The Iveragh Peninsula, where this site sits, was intensively used over many centuries for seasonal grazing and small-scale agriculture, and clusters like this one are physical traces of that pattern. The varying internal diameters, ranging from around 1.3 metres to 3.9 metres, point to structures built for different uses rather than a single coherent building campaign. Some may have sheltered people; others, animals or equipment.

What makes the site quietly interesting is precisely its modesty. These are not monuments erected with any ambition toward permanence. Boulder construction of this kind, using whatever stones lay close to hand, was the most pragmatic form of building available to people working at altitude in difficult terrain. The old field walls visible nearby suggest the huts did not exist in isolation but were part of a broader, organised use of this upland ground, now largely abandoned to the mountain.

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Pete F
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