Hut site, Knocknabro, Co. Kerry

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Settlement Sites

Hut site, Knocknabro, Co. Kerry

On a south-facing slope above the Clydagh River valley in County Kerry, the heather has been quietly reclaiming a small rectangular building for long enough that its walls have collapsed almost flush with the ground.

What remains is a drystone outline, roughly 3.5 metres north to south and less than 2 metres east to west, the stones now buried under vegetation and rubble. A narrow entrance, just 0.4 metres wide, sits at the centre of the west wall, the kind of modest, functional opening that suggests a working shelter rather than a dwelling of any permanence.

Drystone construction of this kind, built without mortar by stacking and interlocking stones, was common across Irish upland landscapes for centuries, used for everything from seasonal farming shelters to small habitations associated with transhumance, the practice of moving livestock to higher ground in summer. This particular structure sits within what appears to have been a broader pattern of activity on the hillside. Two further hut sites lie close by, one approximately 26 metres to the south and another only around 5 metres to the east, and a relict field wall survives to the southwest. Together, they sketch the outline of a small agricultural community, or at least a working landscape, now dissolved back into the rough hill pasture around Knocknabro.

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Pete F
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