Hut site, Killelan, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Killelan, Co. Kerry

On a slope in Killelan, in the south of County Kerry, someone once built a circular stone hut using a technique that required no mortar and no timber.

The remains are still there, collapsed now into a low ring of rubble, but the original method of construction is legible in what survives. Corbelled drystone building works by laying courses of flat stones so that each projects slightly inward over the one below, eventually closing the roof into a dome or beehive shape without any need for a wooden frame. Structures of this type are found throughout the Iveragh Peninsula, some of the most complete examples anywhere in Ireland, and they tend to cluster in upland areas where seasonal grazing or small-scale farming once took place.

This particular hut measures about 5.1 metres in diameter and sits on an artificial terrace, meaning the ground itself was levelled or cut back to create a flat platform before construction began. The entrance faces east and is 0.7 metres wide, a deliberately narrow opening that would have helped retain heat. Scattered nearby are several large stone slabs, thought to be displaced lintels that once spanned the doorway. The hut also sits in close association with the remains of old field fences, suggesting it was part of a small working landscape rather than an isolated shelter. A related site lies roughly 70 metres upslope, hinting at a cluster of activity across this stretch of hillside. These details come from the archaeological survey of the Iveragh Peninsula compiled by A. O'Sullivan and J. Sheehan, published by Cork University Press in 1996, a systematic catalogue that brought many such features to wider attention for the first time.

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