Hut site, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Settlement Sites
On the western slopes of Mullaghnarakill in County Kerry, a small stone hut sits in rocky mountain terrain, built without mortar and yet still standing.
What makes it particularly curious is not its age or even its isolation, but the four small chambers cut into its interior walls, two of which burrow semi-subterraneously beneath the wall itself, extending beyond its outer face into the ground below.
The structure is corbelled, meaning its walls were built by gradually overlapping courses of dry stone inward until they met at the top, a technique used across early medieval Ireland to create a self-supporting vault without any binding material. This particular example measures 4.3 metres in diameter and stands 1.7 metres high, with walls 0.7 metres thick and a south-facing entrance. The four lintelled chambers set into the wall interior average around half a metre in height, small enough to suggest storage rather than habitation, though their exact function remains open to interpretation. The two that extend below floor level and beyond the wall's outer width are the more unusual feature, suggesting a deliberate effort to maximise usable space within the structure's fabric. Huts of this type are found across the Iveragh Peninsula and tend to be associated with early Christian or early medieval activity, sometimes appearing in proximity to ecclesiastical enclosures or monastic settlements, though this example appears to stand alone in its mountain setting.