Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Settlement Sites

Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry

On the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, a cluster of three drystone huts sits quietly in the landscape, their low walls merged into the ground over centuries.

Drystone construction means exactly what it sounds like: stone laid without mortar, held in place by the careful fitting of one piece against another. It is one of the oldest building techniques in Ireland, and structures built this way can be extraordinarily difficult to date without excavation.

At least one of the huts survives in identifiable form, its oval outline still legible despite heavy overgrowth. The internal space measures roughly 3.1 metres by 2.1 metres, with walls surviving to a thickness of about 0.7 metres. What makes the entrance particularly worth noting is its construction: two pairs of opposed upright slabs, set face to face to define the doorway, a simple but deliberate architectural choice that has outlasted the roof and much of the superstructure above it. The site appears in A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan's archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula, published by Cork University Press in 1996, which documented a remarkable density of early remains across this part of south Kerry. Hut groups of this kind are generally associated with seasonal or pastoral activity, though without excavation it is impossible to assign them a firm period.

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