Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
Three small stone huts once stood within arm's reach of one another on the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, close enough that whoever lived or sheltered in them could have passed objects between doorways without taking more than a step.
The ruins at Teeromoyle are not dramatic, but that proximity is quietly arresting. Most of the walls have fallen, leaving low spreads of stone rather than standing enclosures, though a few upright slabs and stones set on edge remain to suggest the original construction.
The three structures are roughly circular in plan, each measuring between 2.5 and 2.6 metres in diameter, which gives a sense of just how compact they were. The surviving wall sections reach no higher than 0.8 metres in places, and the walls themselves were between 0.8 and 1.1 metres thick, a proportion that indicates solid, deliberate building rather than hasty shelter. Huts of this general type, built from dry-laid stone and clustered together, appear throughout the Kerry landscape and are associated with a broad range of periods and uses, from early medieval settlement to post-medieval booley sites, where families moved with their cattle to upland grazing for the summer months. Without excavation or dateable material, it is not possible to say with confidence which period these particular huts belong to, or whether they served a seasonal or permanent function. Their clustering, though, is suggestive of a group working or living in close coordination rather than isolated individuals.