Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, a small stone structure sits quietly in the landscape, defined not by mortared walls but by upright slabs set on edge, a construction technique that gives it the appearance of something half-emerged from the earth rather than built upon it.
The hut is subrectangular in plan, measuring three metres by four metres internally, which is to say roughly the floor area of a modest garden shed. What makes it particularly worth attention is the arrangement at its northern side, where a gap about 0.8 metres wide suggests an original entrance, and that entrance connects to an adjoining circular enclosure, implying the two elements functioned together as part of a single, considered design.
The site lies 67 metres south of a river, a positioning that would have made practical sense for whoever occupied or used it, whether for pastoral activity, seasonal habitation, or some other purpose. Slab-built huts of this kind are known from early medieval Ireland and are sometimes associated with booley sites, the temporary upland settlements used during transhumance, when cattle and their herders moved to summer grazing grounds. The combination of a rectilinear hut with a circular enclosure is not unusual in this tradition, the enclosure likely serving to pen animals while the hut offered basic shelter. The structure was recorded as part of a detailed archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, which documented the remarkable density of early remains across this part of Kerry.