Hut site, Derrynafinnia, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Derrynafinnia, Co. Kerry

On a south-east-facing slope above the valley of the Clydagh River in County Kerry, a small oval outline barely rises above the heather.

It measures roughly 1.2 metres east to west and 0.9 metres north to south, its form suggested more than stated by a collapsed drystone wall, now reduced to about 0.4 metres in height. The interior is choked with rubble. On its own, this would be easy to dismiss as a scatter of field stone, but it is not alone.

At least four other hut sites cluster in the same stretch of rough hill pasture. One sits directly to the west, adjoining this structure. Another lies only three metres to the east. Two more are positioned approximately 35 metres to the north-east and 60 metres to the south. Together they suggest a community of some kind, people who once sheltered or worked on this slope in numbers sufficient to leave traces across a considerable spread of ground. Drystone construction of this type, walls built without mortar by stacking and fitting stone, appears across many centuries of Irish rural life, used variously for permanent dwellings, seasonal shelters, and enclosures connected to transhumance, the old practice of moving livestock to upland grazing in summer. The orientation of the slope, facing south-east and overlooking the river valley below, would have offered both shelter from prevailing weather and a practical view of the surrounding land. Whether these huts were all in use simultaneously or represent different episodes of occupation is not something the physical remains alone can settle.

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Pete F
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