Hut site, Cahernaman, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Cahernaman, Co. Kerry

On the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, a roughly circular feature sits within the remains of a caher, the Irish term for a stone-walled ringfort, marking what was likely once a dwelling space of some kind.

The structure, known as an inner ring, measures just under fifteen metres in overall diameter, a modest footprint that speaks to the intimate scale of early medieval life in this part of Munster. Nearby, around fourteen metres from the caher itself, a mound conceals something more unusual: an opening into a souterrain, an underground passage or chamber typically constructed from stone, often used for storage or refuge during the early medieval period.

The site was recorded by a scholar identified as Ua Riain, who observed both the probable hut-site and the adjacent souterrain entrance. His observations were later incorporated into the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan and published by Cork University Press in 1996, a volume that remains a significant reference for the archaeology of south Kerry. The combination of a ringfort, an internal hut-site, and a souterrain in close proximity is not unheard of in Irish early medieval archaeology, but the clustering of these elements at Cahernaman gives the site a particular layered quality, each feature suggesting a different aspect of how people organised and protected their domestic lives in this landscape.

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