Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Teeromoyle, Co. Kerry

Two low circular structures sit close together on the Teeromoyle landscape of south Kerry, small enough to crouch inside yet old enough that no one can say with confidence who built them or why.

What makes them quietly arresting is the possibility that they were never quite separate, that whoever raised them intended the pair to function as a single, conjoined space.

The eastern structure is the more legible of the two. It measures roughly three metres across and survives to a height of about thirty centimetres, with a wall thickness of around a metre. Its most distinctive feature is a pronounced gap on the southern side, which may represent an original entrance, and its walls are revetted with upright slabs, meaning that vertical stones were set on edge to line and reinforce the interior face. Revetment of this kind is typical of the drystone building tradition found across the Iveragh Peninsula, where builders relied on local stone rather than mortar to create durable, compact shelters. The western structure is broader, at five metres in diameter, but survives in a rougher state. Upright stones define its northern side, while the southern side is marked by a combination of sod-covered stones and smaller slabs set on edge, suggesting the structure has partially collapsed or been robbed of material over time. Both sit at the same modest height and wall thickness, which is part of what supports the idea that they belong together, perhaps two rooms of a single dwelling, or a habitation space paired with an enclosure for animals or storage. The site was recorded as part of the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996.

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