Hut site, Teamhair, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
High on the north-western slopes of Farraniaragh, tucked into a sheltered gully with Ballinskelligs Bay spreading out to the west below, a pair of ancient drystone hut foundations survive in a state that tells two overlapping stories at once.
The larger of the two, roughly circular and measuring around 3.7 by 3.6 metres across, was built using the drystone technique, meaning its walls were constructed entirely from dry-laid stone without mortar, relying on the careful fitting of one piece against another for structural integrity. At some point, whoever held the land found it more useful as a sheepfold than as an archaeological curiosity, and the structure was modified accordingly. That pragmatic repurposing has left the foundations in a complicated condition, the original form visible but obscured by later intervention.
The inner wall-face of the main hut is lined with upright slabs, and a semicircular annex projects from its western side. To the north, a second, smaller hut, measuring roughly 3.1 by 1.9 metres, is defined by upright slabs and some large rectangular blocks. The walls of the larger hut stand to a surviving thickness of around 2 metres, which points to a structure that was built to last. The site sits within the broader archaeological landscape of the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, a stretch of coastline documented in detail by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan in their 1996 survey published by Cork University Press. Though the survey records the site's physical dimensions with precision, it does not assign it a firm date, leaving open the question of exactly when people first chose this particular gully as a place to shelter and build.