Hut site, Shronebirrane, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Shronebirrane, Co. Kerry

On a boggy hillside in south-west Kerry, overlooking the quiet waters of Loughanunaghan Lake, the remains of a small oval hut sit in rough pasture as though the hill simply swallowed them.

The structure is modest by any measure, roughly 3.3 metres along its longer axis and 2.1 metres across, but what makes it quietly arresting is how deliberately it was set into the landscape. The builder cut the northern end of the wall into the upslope, creating a depth of around 0.8 metres, so that the hillside itself formed part of the shelter. Outcropping rock was incorporated directly into the drystone walling, which is the technique of fitting stones without mortar, relying instead on careful stacking and weight. The lower courses of that wall still protrude above the surrounding bog, while rubble from the collapsed upper sections lies scattered around the perimeter.

What gives the site a stranger quality is its immediate company. Roughly two metres to the north-east stands a pair of standing stones, and approximately five metres to the east sits a megalithic structure of some kind. Whether the hut was built in conscious relation to these older monuments, or simply occupied ground that already carried significance, is not known. The clustering of a domestic structure with prehistoric stonework is not unusual across Kerry's uplands, where generations of activity have left overlapping traces, but here the proximity is particularly tight. The three features occupy what amounts to a very small patch of hillside, each within a short stride of the others.

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Pete F
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